Guest AuthorWith Indian handicraft industry being the largest employment generators in the rural and urban areas, Mr. Leo Shastri, Director, Usha Exim Pvt Ltd, said we have to revive the age-old jewelry and home décor products as it will give the requisite thrust to the Indian Handicraft Industry that contributes significantly to our country’s export and foreign earnings.
Over the years, the Indian Handicraft Industry has had the status of cottage industry in India, but it has shown promising growth and evolved as one of the major revenue generator in the recent times. It has shown continuous growth at the rate of 15-20% in the past few years.
“Handicrafts are unique expressions and represent a culture, tradition and heritage of a country. The Handicraft Industry is one of the important productive sectors. The state and regional clusters contribute significantly to handicrafts export. The Indian handicrafts industry is fragmented with more than seven million regional artisans and over 67,000 exporters/export houses promoting regional art and craftsmanship in the domestic and global markets. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the retail sales and export of jewelry and home décor product has been affected immensely. But government should take steps to revive jewelry and home décor product and should increase the incentive rate so that exporters can recover the input costs involved in the production of handicraft,” said Mr. Leo Shastri, Director, Usha Exim Pvt Ltd.
Usha Exim Pvt Ltd, a fair trade export company of multiple products, produces a wide range of high fashion fair trade jewelry like necklaces, earrings, bangles, bracelets and other jewelry items made from metallic materials, wood, horn, bone, leather, beads and glass with embellishments to go with all kinds of outfits.
Besides jewelry, their other high selling points are bags, belts, scarves, home furnishing and garments. Their 95 percent revenue is generated from exporting their products in countries like US, Germany & Australia. And, the rest 5% is domestic sales.
“Usha has home-based Jewelry workshops in Delhi and neighbouring states. These workshops create opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers with transparency and accountability. Both, male and female producers are engaged in producing socially responsible fairly covered ethical fashion jewelry for the mainstream world market. No child / bonded / labour is involved in production of any merchandise, at any stage of making at any of the workshop,” Mr. Shastri added.
Well, such initiatives are commendable as the Cottage industry never had a voice before. Leo Shastri is setting the stakes high now. If the Cottage Industry is diversified and it receives more attention, our nation has so much to benefit on.
Well guys, July 24th is tomorrow and Dil Bechara is coming. Don’t forget to read our review in our Web Series page once published.
Aravind Sundaram
Guest Author
