Govt needs to replace handicrafts board with a smarter body, say artisans and industry insiders

Govt needs to replace handicrafts board with a smarter body, say artisans and industry insiders

New Delhi, Aug 17 (PTI) The All India Handicrafts Board, set up in 1952, has been abolished but the need is to quickly replace it with a more dynamic and effective body that represents the artisan community and shows it the way forward, say industry insiders and craftspersons.

The decision to scrap the handicrafts board, which had its last meeting in 2016, caps the slow decay of the institution set up five years after Independence with a mandate to preserve the country”s rich craft heritage.

The advisory board, instituted by cultural activist Pupul Jayakar, was practically non-functional for most part of the last decade, a major reason why many seem to agree it needed to be disbanded.

It was scrapped on August 3 by the Ministry of Textiles, which stated that the decision was in “consonance with the government of India vision of ‘minimum government and maximum governance’, a leaner government machinery and the need for systematic rationalisation of government bodies”.

Hyderabad-based designer Bina K Rao, who was a member of the handicrafts board, expressed the hope that “something smarter” would come up in its place.

The last meeting, she said, was held in 2016 and the situation wasn’t much better even before that.

“Sometimes the meetings would happen once a year, or once in two years… The board should have been reconstituted in 2017 after the completion of the two-year term, but we never received any intimation,” Rao told PTI over phone.

With all its flaws, the body provided “a window” for grassroots artisans and that has closed now so something must replace it, he said. The issues discussed when the board met ranged from subsidies on silk yarns to lack of enough marketing of handicrafts products.

Rao was one of the 88 non-official members (small and medium scale artisans as well as handicrafts enterprises) on the board, which also comprised eight institutional members, including the director general of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and chairperson of the Carpet Export Promotion Council.

Chaired by the Textiles minister, it also comprised 16 official members, including the development commissioner (Handicrafts), secretary, Micro Small & Medium Enterprises and senior director of the National Handicrafts & Handlooms Museum.

Srinivas Pitchuka, a second generation manufacturer and exporter of ‘kalamkari’ and other block printed textiles in Pedana village of Andhra Pradesh, is hoping that any new body will have more representation from his community.

The All India Handicrafts Board was inconsequential, he said.

In the two years that he was a member (2013-15), no meetings were held and the problems of the artisan community in the area remained unaddressed.

“I manufacture ‘kalamkari’ textiles and we use organic colours for dyeing and block printing, but there are people who use artificial colours and sell unauthentic products. This was an issue that I would have wanted to bring to the government’s notice.

“Besides my business, our region is also quite well known for making ‘veenas’ (musical instrument). Sourcing wood for it is very difficult, but there is no one to help us out with these problems,” Pitchuka told PTI.

Pitchuka believes the lack of “real artisans” on the board was the real problem.

“How could these ‘netas’ understand the true value of art? Such bodies need to have real artisans who will understand the problems of the community in order to make a difference,” he said.

The second largest livelihood sector in India, the textile handicrafts sector alone employs 68 lakh artisans. The handicrafts industry brought in Rs.36,798.20 crore through exports, according to the Ministry of Textiles’ annual report for 2018-19. The revenue also includes sales of carpets.

About 60 per cent of the handicrafts products produced in the country are exported.

Jaya Jaitly, handicrafts curator and founder of the Dastkari Haat Samiti (an NGO working with artisans to uphold craft traditions) said the board had been made gradually useless since the 1990s and is glad it has been abolished.

“No point renovating a dead object. It is best to be rid of it and create something new, effective, dynamic in tune with an ‘aatmanirbhar’ Bharat on a clean slate, with inputs from truly experienced and knowledgeable persons rather than use it for the patronage of favourites,” she said.

A senior official said an alternative to the board is yet to be announced but the government has taken the first step by strengthening Weaver Service Centres across the country in collaboration with NIFT.

“With the help of NIFT, these centres will undergo facelifts and redesigning…a design component will be created in these centres. The first phase has already started in eight to nine centres, and eventually all 28 WSCs will be taken up,” he said.

Besides the All India Handicrafts Board, the government last month also disbanded the Handloom, Powerloom as well as the Cotton Advisory Board.

The official cited “decreasing relevance” as the reason behind the move.

The handicrafts board, he added was established a really long time ago and used to meet once a year. “But because the department anyway has advisory bodies at several levels, the board’s relevance kept decreasing… The idea is to let professional bodies function professionally so the government has a minimum role.”

The handicrafts board was not the only space where artisans could voice their concerns.

“We have field offices at regional levels. Local artisans keep having interactions at those forums. We have 66 field offices all over India. There are also all the handicrafts corporations which have their own associations. Similarly, handloom corporations have their own associations, which are supported by the government in some way,” the official said. PTI TRS
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Published at Mon, 17 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0000