Govt launches India Handloom website

The government on Wednesday launched the integrated website of `India Handloom' brand, which will offer a one-stop platform for all services to consumers, bulk buyers and handloom producers, as part of the government's efforts to market positioning of handloom products.

The website will provide full details of all registered India Handloom producers, which will facilitate verification of genuine India Handloom product by customers.  They will able to verify the genuineness of the brand logo through the registration number, which is printed on every label on the product.

The website will also provide information about the retail stores and e-commerce platform from where India Handloom branded products can be purchased. It will also contain brief description of every product category and tips to identify genuine products.

Contact details of India Handloom Brand producers are available for bulk buyers like retail stores, garment manufacturers who will able to directly access the handloom producers registered under the brand.

The web site has also a section where handloom producers can apply online for registration under the brand and can also track status of their application.

While launching the website, Rashmi Verma secretary (textiles) said the government was committed to raise the market positioning of handloom products for development of handloom industry and for increasing wages of handloom weavers.  She said the website will be an important platform for achieving these objectives and would be user-friendly both for consumers as well as handloom producing agencies.
 
'India Handloom' brand was launched by Prime Minister on 7 August 2015, the first National Handloom Day, to endorse the quality of handloom products in terms of raw material, processing, embellishment, weaving, design and other parameters besides social and environment compliance.

The main objective is to promote the production of quality products with new designs for winning the trust and confidence of customers by giving particular attention to defect free, hand woven, authentic niche products with zero defect and zero impact on environment.

The registration under the brand is given after stringent testing of samples in government laboratory. By 10 February 2016, around 121 handloom producing agencies/enterprises have been given registration under the brand in 33 product categories.

Several e-commerce platforms and leading retail stores have also been engaged for marketing of India Handloom branded products.

More than 4.3 million people are engaged in this sector with annual production of 7,200 million sq mtrs of textiles, which is 14 per cent of the total textile sector.  It provides livelihood to large number of rural women and backward sections of the society.

The industry is supported nationwide by 28 weavers' service centres and 10 Indian Institutes of Handloom Technology. National Handloom Development Corporation is responsible for supply of quality yarn, dyes and chemicals.

In order to address the main challenges of competition from powerloom sector, quality concerns of consumers and stagnant wages for weavers, the new strategy aims at increasing production of high-value good quality products leading to consumer satisfaction and remunerative earnings to the weavers.

The government has adopted a block level cluster approach to support quality production and 'India Handloom' brand for market positioning are two key elements of new strategy.

The online marketing platform will be supplemented by market linked design intervention and documented success stories that have already helped establish a number of handloom brands and create new jobs.