Page 140 - economic review

Industry and Labour112

Importance of Handicraft Industry

3.84 Kerala State Handicrafts Apex Co-operative Society (SURABHI), Handicrafts Development
Corporation and Artisans Development Corporation are the major promotional agencies in the
handicraft industry. SURABHI is the apex organization of primary handicrafts co-operatives established
with a view to uplift the artisans by marketing the product produced by the primary co-operatives and
implementing welfare schemes with the assistance from State and Central Governments. There are
46 societies and SURABHI made a profit of ` 18.18 lakh from 10 exhibitions and fairs in the year
2013-14. Details are given in Appendix 3.35.

3.85 Handicrafts Development Corporation of Kerala is engaged in procuring and marketing handicraft
products by giving fair returns to artisans through SMSM Institute and Kairali emporia spread all over
India. At present it is having a net work of 19 such sales emporia other than SMSMI. HDCK has been
running a Common Facility Service Centre (CFSC) at Thiruvananthapuram for artisans who engaged
in development wood crafts. HDCK made a profit of ` 19.80 lakh from 32 exhibitions and fairs in the
year 2013-14.Details are given in Appendix 3.36.The Kerala Artisans Development Corporation
(KADCO) is one of the State agencies to provide assistance to artisans for establishing production
units, promoting marketing of products and providing employment opportunities through schemes of
trade fairs and marketing centres.

Bamboo Industry

3.86 Bamboo is a highly productive renewable & eco friendly resource and Bamboo applications vary
on a massive scale, in environment protection, as a nutrient food, high-value construction material
and in other about 1,500 listed applications. It is estimated that about 2.5 billion people use bamboo
in one form or the other at the global level. Advanced research activities are conducted to utilize
bamboo for efficient fuel generating system.

3.87 From a raw material known as the “ poor man’s timber” bamboo is currently being elevated
to the status of “the timber of the 21st century”. India has the largest diversity of bamboos with 136
species. Next to the North East region, Western Ghatts is the area which has the second largest
diversity of bamboos. It is estimated that 8 million artisans are depended on bamboo craft for their
livelihood and the annual turnover of the bamboo sector is estimated to be around ` 2400 crores, in
India. This is a totally unorganized sector.

3.88 In Kerala, 28 species of bamboo are found to occur. Bamboos from the Kerala forest are being
supplied mainly to the pulp and rayon units under concessional rates. It is estimated that there are
about one lakh people in the state dependent on bamboo for their livelihood. Recent data from the
panchayats indicate that from the early seventies onwards there has been a great drain in the number
of artisans from the sector to semi skilled and unskilled jobs in the tertiary sectors like construction
etc. A unique feature of the Kerala bamboo scene is that 67.3 % of the extracted bamboo comes from
home gardens rather than from the forests.

3.89 The Kerala State Bamboo Corporation Ltd. was established in 1971 in Kerala to develop and
promote industries based on Bamboo, reed, cane and rattan. Kerala State Bamboo Corporation’s
main activity is collection of good quality reeds from Government forests and distributing these reeds
to the registered mat weavers of the Corporation, throughout the State of Kerala, on credit basis
and procuring woven mats made of these reeds at reasonable prices, thus providing employment
and regular means of livelihood to these weaver sections of the society. Bamboo mats, Bamboo ply,
Flattened board, Flooring tiles are the main products. The weaving sector artisans around Ankamali
region is supported by the Kerala State Bamboo Corporation.

Kerala State Planning Board