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Discussion on revival of handloom, handicraft sector

By Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, May 3 - The Indian Chamber of Commerce organised a webinar on the topic �The Impact of Coronavirus Outbreak on Handloom and Handicrafts of North East India and its revival strategy� in the city on Saturday.

The objective of the seminar was to assess the damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak in the handloom and handicrafts of Northeast India, revival strategy for the handloom and handicrafts sector in the region, ways and means to restore the broken supply chain of handloom and handicrafts products and enabling the marketing of the produces, survival strategy for the exporters and financial incentive requisite for the revival of the sector.

The webinar was moderated by Ishantor Sobhapandit, regional director, Indian Chamber of Commerce, North-East Initiative.

The meeting was represented by panellists from the Government of India and industry players from the North-east, including S Bandopadhyaya, director (East Zone), Weavers� Service Centre Guwahati DC (Handlooms), Union Ministry of Textiles; VP Thakur, regional director (NER), Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Union Ministry of Textiles; Dr Shailendra Chowdhury, managing director, North East Handicrafts & Handlooms Development Corporation Ltd., Union Ministry of DoNER; Winfred Warshong, director, Meghalaya Handloom and Handicrafts Development Corporation Limited; Dilip Barooah, managing director, Fabric Plus Pvt Ltd; Arita Kashyap Bhowmick, proprietor, Doyna; and Dr Arnab Banerjee, assistant professor, Department of Fashion Management Studies, NIFT, Shillong.

Bandopadhyaya highlighted the plight of the craftsmen and weavers who would be most affected by the pandemic. He laid stress on e-commerce platforms which can be utilised for the dispatch of products by the artisans and weavers.

Bandopadhyaya further said that potential handloom production agencies need to be identified to carry out supply of masks and other clothing materials.

VP Thakur talked about the current situation and also shared his foresight regarding the transaction of goods online.

Shailendra Chowdhury discussed the present situation and emphasised on market intelligence and e-marketing as a tool to handle the current situation. Winfred Warshong spoke about the mask-making initiative of the Government of Meghalaya wherein over one lakh masks have been made and those would be distributed among the citizens of Meghalaya through hospitals and medical centres.

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