GUWAHATI, May 24 – The North Eastern Development Finance Corporation (NEDFi) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have joined hands to set up a marketing centre for handloom and handicraft products of the North East at Guwahati to channelise corporate spendings on craft products.
A memorandum of undertaking was signed recently between NEDFi and CII to improve handloom and handicraft products of the region. Under this initiative, artisans, institutions and organisations who are directly involved with artisans would be benefited to a great extent and would facilitate improvement of the living standards of the artisans.
The objectives, a NEDFi release said, is to associate with industry to explore the possible market, create demand for traditional products, create a sound data base, impart training, sourcing, linking to the market with holistic guidelines through networking and to explore a mechanism towards self-sustenance of the marketing centre.
As an operational initiative, some selected producers’ groups, artisans and NGOs would be targeted from all the eight North East states and networks and linkages would be established among them to create a databank. It would be done in coordination with the respective state governments, NGOs, weavers’ centres, marketing professionals and design experts. The first year would be devoted to development of backward and forward market linkages and seek strategic partners.