Put a weaver from Chanderi on Dalal Street and in all possibility, he won’t be flummoxed?so accustomed is the community to the practice of buying equity shares and drawing a dividend. In fact, the small town of Chanderi in Madhya Pradesh boasts of two producer companies that have evolved from the clusters in which these weavers work. At least 50 self-help groups are masters of their own fortune and have been reaping dividends of up to 60% in the past two years.

The workscape of Chanderi is dotted with successful examples of groupings that have helped weavers tap resources such as yarn banks, centralised dyeing facilities and even microcredit. The Bunkar Vikash Sansthan (BVS) is a case in point. The not-for-profit is a collective of 13 self-help groups (SHGs) and has a total of 119 members. BVS has a dyeing facility on its premises that both members and non-member can use, a quality control division peopled by members elected from within the collective, and a storage-cum-retail facility. BVS has also started the Apna Kosh microcredit facility, which has already disbursed a total of Rs 26 lakh in loans of Rs 500-10,000 each.

Take the case of Tana Bana SHG, which is also part of the BVS combine. The SHG has grown its kitty from a starting pool of Rs 5,004 to Rs 9 lakh now. Tana Bana does everything from dyeing and preparing the yarn to weaving and marketing the final produce from its more than 20 looms.

Explains Om Prakash Bhumarkar, project coordinator, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI): ?Despite the diversity, there were some common learnings from the action plans developed after studying nearly 20 clusters nationwide. Chief among them were the gains from forming SHGs and market links, skill upgrade and introducing technology.? Bhumarkar estimates there are now 156 SHGs in Chanderi alone.

Gujarat-based EDI runs one of at least two companies here that offer weavers equity. Weaver stakeholders in EDI-managed Chanderi Handlooms Cluster Development Producer Co Ltd have in the past two years seen dividends of 40% and 60%, respectively. The company recorded profits of Rs1 lakh in financial year 2009 and Rs 1.5 lakh in fiscal 2010. Says Bhumarkar: ?When we started out, the question we were faced with was how can we reach the profits directly to the weavers. We knew then we wanted to form a producers’ company, and based our concept on the Amul (cooperative) model.?

Under this model, EDI?which is also implementing the cluster approach in other traditional handloom centres such as Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Sonepur in Orissa?maintains a yarn bank, a dyeing facility, a design house and a marketing channel for the articles produced by member weavers. EDI has a 20-year history of working with the Union government.

The Chanderi cluster started out as a 250-strong producers’ company representing at least 50 SHGs, 35 of them peopled by women, in 2008. In the first year of operations, the company saw a turnover of Rs 32 lakh, and in financial year 2009-10, this grew to annual revenue of Rs 63 lakh.

The company issues shares to groups rather than individual members. And for the sake of equity within the group, the company maintains two tabs?one of the groups as a whole and the second of individual contributions towards the pool. Each group is issued a minimum of ten shares valued at Rs 1,000.

Desert Artisans Handicrafts Ltd, or DAH India, which supplies to multi-store retail chain Fab India, has issued ten shares each to 455 weavers. The weavers own 4,550 shares, or 26% stake in the company. DAH completes orders of some Rs 8 lakh a month, according to a local official who did not want to be named. The official declined to share details of the valuation process, but said the shares were currently worth Rs 300 apiece. Each of the 119 members of BVS is also a shareholder in the DAH India producers? company.

Says Afroz Jahan, a local weaver and BVS member: ?We’ve also bought shares in the DAH producers’ company.? Ask her what she’s gained from the investment, and pat comes the reply: ?The per-share rate has soared since. I can even sell the equity for a profit, if I choose.?

The Centre had recommended the cluster approach under the Integrated Handloom Development Scheme in 2007-08. The scheme was allocated Rs 605 crore to cover nearly 3.7 million weavers nationwide in the 11th Five-Year Plan. According to the Planning Commission’s mid-term appraisal, Rs 344.48 crore of this will already have been spent at the end of the first three years. The scheme was to focus on the formation of self-sustaining weavers? groups and extend benefits, including basic inputs such as looms and accessories, design development and marketing support. But Chanderi is in for more.

A tourist destination

On a recent visit to San Tropez in France, Jyotiraditya Scindia saw something he knew would be a good fit for Chanderi?cobbled walkways made with locally sourced stone. The no-vehicular-traffic paths would be a step towards realising the potential of the weaver town as a handloom tourism destination.

Says Scindia, minister of state for commerce and industry and member of Parliament from Guna: ?I want to eventually showcase Chanderi as to how you can twin tourism, handloom and culture and make it a very viable package. We will have one or two roads that are just walkways where a tourist can walk into a weaver’s house, watch him weaving, maybe sample some of his products. You’ll have roadside cafes?something one would do abroad.?

So on returning, Scindia asked that a 10×10 sample road be constructed without delay in the traditional weaver town in Ashok Nagar district, Madhya Pradesh.

A special purpose vehicle, Chanderi Development Society for Handloom Weavers, executed the road. The society was formed in 2008 for executing projects such as laying internal roads, improving water supply, developing weaver workstations, quality certification and marketing promotion and building display centres. The Union government had even sanctioned Rs 27.8-crore, under the Infrastructure Upgradation Scheme, for Chanderi in March of that year.

As per ministry of commerce and industry records, nearly Rs 5.75 crore has already been released towards the completion of work in Chanderi, including the construction of the sample road and an intake well at the local Rajghat Dam. Of the Rs 27.8 crore sanctioned for the handloom cluster project, Rs 20.3 crore was to be contributed by the Centre, Rs 4.17 crore by industry and Rs 3.33 crore by the state government and other agencies.

The restoration of Raja Mahal, a multistorey monument dating back to the 15th century, as a ‘living monument’ by the Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), is part of the push towards developing Chanderi as a handloom tourism destination. Plans are afoot to turn the adjoining Rani Mahal into a heritage hotel. Already, toilets have been fitted out in four suites on the second floor of the complex. A local tour guide says the third floor hall is being primed to host conventions and parties.

Says Scindia: ?We needed to bring the mahal back to its original glory, not just in terms of a desolate monument, but in terms of a living monument. And the only way to do that in this day and age is to ensure there is daily practice happening inside that building. Along with another agency, we have moved 100-200 weavers and weaving classes into

Raja Mahal.? He adds: ?For me it is not only an administrative responsibility, it is a passion. It has been an arduous journey, but both the interventions on the handlooms side and in tourism are beginning to bear fruit.?

Weaver Atta Mohammed Tao Rehman, who has in the past won accolades for his mastery in weaving, is cognizant of the potential benefits of handloom tourism. In 1992, Rehman?s Chanderi fabric-inspired tableau for the 26 January Republic Day parade won the Madhya Pradesh state second place. The trophy has pride of place on the low shelf in his work shed. Ask him about the tableau and the award, and out come photos of the parade, and the stainless steel plate and glass presented to him along with the trophy.

?This weave has taken 260 tilliya ,? he points to a flower motif on a dupatta he has just woven. That means the zari thread had to be introduced into the weave 260 times by hand without breakage. ?The more the number of tilliya , the greater the skill that goes into making the product,? elaborates Rehman.

It is this chance to explain his work to potential buyers so they may better appreciate the product that Rehman wants to grab with both hands, he says. He is confident he will be able to translate a fair number of casual tourist walk-ins into sales opportunities.

After all, he has seen other government-sponsored initiatives take hold here before. For now, he can hardly wait for that 10×10 patch of cobbled sandstone just outside his home in Chanderi to grow into a full-length road.

Being viable

With producer companies at the helm, surviving in the market has become easier for Chanderi weavers. For instance, EDI is working with National Institute of Fashion Technology-trained designer Sanjay Garg to design and develop its products. Textile designers such as Chelna Desai, too, have used the fabric in their collections.

Moreover, Chanderi weavers are not just making sarees, but have turned to shirts, kurtas, curtains and cushion covers too. This experimentation began as early as 2004. Recalls Mohammad Umar, a seasoned master weaver and president of BVS, that Fab India came to Chanderi in search of a potential sourcing site that year. But the thinner-than-gossamer fabric was too translucent for use in clothing such as shirts and kurtas. The local weavers had a simple solution, one that is still being practised?to make three-ply fabric instead of the single ply used for sarees. ?It is simple enough,? explains Umar, ?one can roll together three strands of thread by hand, and it isn?t very time-consuming. The resulting fabric was acceptable to the company, and we are still using the technique.?

Yasmin Mirza, a designer with the Chanderiyaan project, is using the three-ply fabric for making women?s shirts she plans to exhibit at an upmarket mall in Delhi during the Commonwealth Games. The brand Chanderiyaan is run by the New Delhi-headquartered non-profit Digital Empowerment Foundation, with a focus on the promotion of the art of weaving Chanderi and the inclusion of technological advancements in the production and marketing of these products.

And, while the government-authorised cluster project had provisioned for marketing exercises such as setting up exhibitions and stalls in fests, private players have also put their weight behind exploiting the commercial potential of the product. Fab India, for example, has set up a pipeline to source the fabrics directly from Chanderi and sell them through its stores across the country. Alok Jain, a local trader and proprietor of Gorelal Phoolchand Jain saree store, has formed marketing links with stores such as Nalli?s and Mrignayani. And these products are also available online now through websites such as Chanderiyaan.net.

Policymakers and stakeholders also stress on the importance of commercial viability of the handlooms industry if it is to survive in any meaningful way. Says Arun Maira, member, Planning Commission, and chairperson of a Plan Panel committee on handlooms formed in February: ?Look at this situation not as helping disadvantaged people, it is about creating a viable industry. And by industry I don’t mean a big factory or a big company, but millions of little industries?they could be one-man or one-woman industries, but an industry that as a business makes sense.?