Government today decided to go for a massive evaluation of business centres, production units and restructuring of the manpower of Handloom and Handicraft Development Corporations, even as it offered a whopping grant to the twin PSUs with the condition to come out of the red in one year by achieving sustainability and clearing liabilities. The other refurbishment moves include running and sharing joint ventures, besides creation and tie up with the e-platforms for online sales for capitalizing huge demand potential of world fame handicraft and handloom products of the state. The government has provided Rs 5 crore Capex grant to Handloom Corporation and Rs 1.75 crore grant to handcraft corporation to enable these to stand their business.The twin corporations have vast chain of business units spread across the state and the country and the government has asked the two managements to share the space in showrooms and relocate unprofitable units to potential tourist destinations to capture high-end customers. These decisions were taken here in a meeting chaired by Principal Secretary Industries and Commerce Navin Choudhary whereat he reviewed the business performance of the twin Public Sector Units and the main departments.
The meeting was attended by the Directors of Handloom and Handicraft Development departments, MDs of corporations and other concerned officers. The Principal Secretary asked the MDs to come up with the business and workforce restructuring plan formulated in consonance with the decisions taken in today’s meeting. He said the plans proposed by the corporations should present a detailed roadmap to achieve the profitability targets and clearance of the liabilities in one year time. It was made clear that the grant has been provided as business promotion capital and not for clearing liabilities. For staff restructuring, the meeting decided to rope in technically and professionally sound manpower at the time of making new recruitments.To capture e-market, the corporations were asked to hire a consultancy for creating space in the online market including inking tie ups with the big giants in the virtual world market. The sharing of showrooms for sale of both modes of products was also agreed upon in principle.