Indian Tribal News Service
New Delhi
The Centre on Saturday (November 27) launched two ambitious projects in an endeavour to uplift the tribal community in Kashmir, revive their endangered Namda craft and upskill the artisans and weavers to boost their productivity.
Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Ministry of Electronics & IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, launched the Revival of Namda craft of Kashmir as a special pilot project under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 3.0 and Up-skilling of artisans and weavers of Kashmir under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), component of PMKVY.
Namda craft is a rug made of sheep wool through felting technique instead of normal weaving process. Due to low availability of raw material, lack of skilled manpower and marketing techniques, the export of this craft has declined almost 100 percent between 1998 and 2008.
Through this special project, the Ministry has designed short-term training curriculum to preserve this endangered craft. The project will be implemented in 25 batches in 3 cycles of training. Each training program will be of approximately three and half months, which results in the cycles being completed in approximately 14-16 months.
The Namda project will be an industry-based training program with beneficiaries involved in Namda Crafts Production who will contribute towards preserving and reviving the rich heritage associated with Namda craft in Kashmir. This will also improve the access of existing artisans of Namda crafts cluster in Kashmir and will improve their prospects of employability.
Launching the initiative, the Minister said that India has a rich heritage and is home to several traditional art forms. “It is the vision Government to revive and promote traditional & heritage skills and to give them support to make them economically sustainable,” he said.
He expressed confidence that with the local industry coming on board, there will be an increase in the carpet exports from Rs 600 crores to Rs 6000 crores which will create employment for 8 lakh people.
Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, MSDE, said that the Ministry has designed a short-term training curriculum to preserve Namda and to revive this endangered craft by making it economically viable and generate jobs to help local artisans. He said the project is an endeavour to uplift the tribal community.
The upskilling project under RPL is expected to improve the competencies of the unorganized workforce of the Handicrafts and Carpet Sector. The artisans and weavers shall be aligned to the standardized National Skills Qualifications Framework.
The initiative will be a value addition to the traditional handicraft products through Upskilling Bridge Module through Government of India certification. The training delivery partners for the upskilling initiative are Mir handicraft, Srinagar Carpet Training and Market Centre and there is special value addition for 10% high performers.
The entire programme will be implemented in different phases, which includes- Selection of Artisans and Weavers, Training of Trainers (ToT), and Upskilling of Artisans and Weavers through RPL with Bridge Module.
