Ambedkar Hastshilp Vikas Yojana (AHVY)

Shri Kashiram Rana, Minister of Textiles has announced the launching of Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hastshilp Vikas Yojana from April 2001."The Scheme with the people oriented approach and involving mobilization of the artisan community in important craft clusters all over the country into self help groups and thrift and credit society, is expected to assist the self help groups in developing into a self sustaining community business enterprise through an integrated development package", the textile Minister explained.A projectised approach shall therefore follow, which would ensure that each project for each of the clusters would be a composite set of interventions over a period of 2-3 years, the Minister further informed. Chairing the All India Handicrafts Board Meeting here today, Shri Kashiram Rana hoped that the inputs that could flow through this projectised approach would include design and technology, marketing support, common facility centers, training for skill upgradation, mobilizing artisans to adopt thrift and credit to meet their day-to-day funding needs.Shri V.Dhananjaya Kumar, Minister of State for Textiles, Shri Anil Kumar, Secretary, Textiles, Ms Tinoo Joshi, Development Commissioner for Handicrafts and Board Members from all over the country were also present at the meeting.

The Textile Minister expressed satisfaction that in spite of several constraints the exports of handicrafts have already exceeded the quarterly targets. The export figures for the quarter ending December 2001 which were provisionally projected at Rs. 7207 crores has exceeded the quarterly targets of Rs. 7110 crores, Shri Kashiram Rana said.

Speaking about the follow up action based on the conference of Ministers of North Eastern States in September 2000, Shri Kashiram Rana said that the Government is proposing to introduce two new schemes which will aim at facilitating flow of concessional credit to the artisans to meet their working capital requirements besides seeking to provide financial support to the artisans particularly living in hilly, difficult & remote areas, parts of Orissa, North Eastern States and J&K to partially offset the high cost of transportation incurred by them in marketing their products in remaining parts of the country.

Shri V.Dhananjaya Kumar, Minister of State for Textiles called for finding solutions to the problems of handicrafts industry especially out of the unorganized nature of the industry. He assured full support of the Government in providing assistance for developing the handicrafts sector and solving problems relating to raw materials.He called on the Handicrafts Board members to play a bigger role in solving the problems of the handicrafts artisans. The Minister hoped that "Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hastshilp Vikas Yojana" would open up new vistas for the handicrafts industry.