The Hindu Business Line : ICT — a boon to Rajasthan carpet weavers

With the help of a series of ICT interventions since the year 2000, the Rajasthan carpet industry, which was earlier declining has not just regained competitiveness, but has started registering impressive exports. From an export figure of Rs 223 crore during 2000-01, the earnings have virtually doubled to Rs 403 crore at the end of fiscal 2002-03.

ICT, especially computer aided designs (CAD) and computer aided machining (CAM), has ushered in a wider array of designs and improved productivity in the case of Rajasthan carpet industry, thus holding out a promise to give a boost to the more than four-hundred-year-old carpet industry, which provides livelihood to more than three million artisans drawn from the rural areas of the country, according to a case study done by the Hyderabad-based Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) for the Planning Commission.

For nearly 250 years, the traditional carpet weavers stuck to designs, which had floral patterns, rhomboids, arabesques and occasionally ventured into animal patterns. Except for manufacture of yarn, mechanisation was very minimal, hence high manual work and wages, though this in a way addressed the unemployment problem in the regions of Jaipur, Tonk, Alwar and Dausa districts of Rajasthan, said the study.

The Rajasthan carpet industry on the other hand with over 1,00,000 weavers boasted of high quality designs at comparatively less prices. But, it encountered a decline phase during 1996-98 as the designs got saturated and productivity fell. At this juncture, PLC Consultation, a New Delhi-based software company was approached for help. The company in turn went into the issue and felt that application of ICT would reduce costs and improve the quality of the product. It quickly developed two software products called AutoTex 2000 and an advanced version Auto Tex 5.6, which enhanced the range of design, brought in appropriate colour combinations, visualisation etc.

The ICT platform introduced during 2000 addressed the entire value chain of the industry in terms of design, production, marketing and presentation of the range of designs. In short, the carpet dealers could examine the potential designs, the weavers could experiment and the time to produce and market considerably got reduced with the end product meeting the consumer demands. Sarswati Carpets, followed by K.P. & Company in Jaipur, were the first companies to deploy the ICT solutions and derive benefits.

What were the tangible benefits of ICT intervention? The costs of the design came down by almost 50 per cent. The computerised designing system helped in reducing presentation time from the routine 25-30 days taken by weavers working manually to just eight to ten days. Then the wool wastage drastically dropped from eight to nine per cent to a meagre one per cent. Consequently, the rejection rate also came down. The Union Ministry of Textile's Central Wool Development Board set up a designing unit at Jaipur to train the weavers.

In terms of boosting export revenues, the weavers were assisted in hosting their products on the Internet. Efforts are under way to bring together weavers and promote the concept of joint selling of products, the ASCI study said.

In the domestic markets also, the carpet industry of Rajasthan has been facing stiff competition from other clusters such as the Mirzapur- Bhadhoi in Uttar Pradesh and Panipat in Haryana, which have higher mechanisation and bigger market share.

Though the Rajasthan carpet industry, through the ICT intervention at the design stage and market demands has started showing higher growth rates, it has to increasingly adopt new technologies at various stages to improve the overall competitiveness. The increasing global demand and tariff reduction have opened up new opportunities. But, China and other synthetic carpet manufacturers such as Iran and Turkey are increasing their share fast, the ASCI study pointed out.