Demonetisation hits handicraft business at Rann Utsav

Additional costs and lack of knowledge about digital payments has affected the artisans’ profits

taru

Taru Bhatia | December 23, 2016 | Kutch


#Rann of Kutch   #Gujarat   #cashless   #Rs 1000   #Rs 500   #currency   #demonetisation   #Reserve Bank of India   #RBI   #black money   #craftsmen   #artisans  
Demonetisation hits handicraft business in Rann Utsav
Demonetisation hits handicraft business in Rann Utsav

Mangal Bhai Rama Harijan is a craftsman from Kawada village, 50 kilometres from the Great Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, the place where India’s most prominent cultural festival takes place every year.

The festival, Rann Utsav, is a 110 days cultural festival. It begins in November and will go on till February. It gives the opportunity to local artisans to display their ‘Kutchchi’ handiwork. This year however, demonetisation has hit them hard and has taken down their business.

Harijan has set up his stall of ‘paka’ work, a form of handmade embroidery of Kutch. He has been seeting up a stall every year for the past 10 years. But this year he saw a dip in his business. He blames demonetisation. “It is been a month now and I have been able to earn around Rs 15,000 only. Last year, in three months, I managed to earn Rs 2 lakh,” he says. He says that melas like these are a good opportunity for local artisans like him to earn money.

Harijan brings local handicraft work from 10-15 villages. He says women who do embroidery work at villages earn from Rs 200 to 300 per day. But unfortunately, only 10 percent of the business took place this month.

On asked why he is not using his mobile phone to do cashless transactions, he says that the process is complicated and he doesn’t know how to use it.

Many handicraft stall owners at the Rann Utsav complained that they were not given any training on how to use digital payment channels.

Lalji, another stall owner from Dholavira, about 300 kilometres from Kutch says, “They told us to go cashless but didn’t teach us how to do it.” Lalji, who opened his stall on December 1, says that in 15 days he has earned Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 only. Last year in the same time period, he managed to earn about Rs 40,000. 

The government official did come once to discuss cashless channels with the local handicraft sellers but never returned. “They came once to collect our account numbers and said that they will come again to teach them how to use digital wallet Paytm. But they never came,” says Arun Vanakar, another seller of Kutch handicraft. 

Vanakar mentions that many visitors wish to pay through Paytm, as they want to save their cash. “One lady taught me how to use Paytm. It wasn’t that difficult.  If official had trained us earlier, we would have not been struggling,” he adds.

Moreover, the Gujarat government this year started to charge Rs 100 per day rent from the stall owners, which was earlier rent-free. This has added more to the artisans’ woes. “Already the business is slow and now we have to pay rent too every day. We are not able to make a single rupee profit so far,” Harijan adds.

 

Comments

 

Other News

Repo rate cut by 25 basis points to 6.25%

The Reserve Bank of India has, for the first time in five years, reduced the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points to 6.25% with immediate effect. Consequently, the standing deposit facility (SDF) rate will stand adjusted to 6.00% and the marginal

Amitav Ghosh’s new work: Connections between the word and the world

Wild Fictions: Essays By Amitav Ghosh HarperCollins, 496 pages, Rs 799.00 Amitav Ghosh, one of a handful of Ind

How markets can help (and also hinder) fight against pollution

In the annals of environmental policy, few ideas have been as transformative as the Emissions Trading System (ETS). Born from the minds of economists in the late 1960s, this market-based approach to pollution control has evolved from a theoretical concept to a global tool in the fight against climate chang

Will Bihar complement the resolution of Viksit Bharat 2047?

As India completes its diamond jubilee as a republic, I am reminded of a statement by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, delivered during an address to the Bihar Chamber of Commerce in Patna on March 28, 2006. He said, “I have visited Bihar numerous times, and it has always been a source of happiness for me to

All you wanted to know about Budget: Key Highlights

Here are the key highlights of the proposal of the Union Budget presented in parliament by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Satuday: NO INCOME TAX ON AVERAGE MONTHLY INCOME OF UPTO RS 1 LAKH; TO BOOST MIDDLE CLASS HOUSEHOLD SAVINGS & CONSUMPTION BENEFITTING

Four engines of development: Agriculture, MSME, investment & exports

Union minister of finance and corporate affairs Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2025-26 in Parliament on Saturday. Here is the summary of her budget speech, Part A: Quoting Telugu poet and playwright Shri Gurajada Appa Rao’s famous saying, ‘A country is not just its

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now



Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter