BDT has been working with weavers Families since last four years. It started with marketing linkages and working capital support from Community Friendly Movement New Delhi and the programmes picked up with marketing linkages with STFC (Sewa Trade Facilitation Center), Sadhna, Rangsutra etc. The programme had been able to mobilise funding for marketing, design and institution development and welfare or weavers from Sir Dorab Ji Tata Trust (SDTT) and All India Artisans and Crafts workers Association New Delhi (AIACA). Last year, BDT won the prestigious award of Development Marketplace 2011 organized by the World Bank, IFC & The World Bank Institute. The Weavers’ livelihood programme is being getting some part of the award. BDT is promoting weavers owned institutions in form of Mutual Benefit Trust. Two mutual benefit Trust named Lodipur Bunkar Trust & Mirjafri Bunkar Trust over last two years. BDT is trying to nurture these trust through its limited resources and provide marketing orders to these Trust. BDT has an outreach of 400 weavers in five clusters of Bhagalpur served by team of seven staff dedicated to this programme and had achieved the sales of Rs.32 lakh in current year.

Problem

Bhagalpur was on the ancient Silk Route that connected India with countries such as China in the east and Europe in the west, is famous for its tussar silk and supplies the product to export houses in Kolkata, Delhi and Varanasi that export it to West Asia, Europe, Japan and the US.The Rs 1000 crore industry in the district produces two million metres of silk a year. It employs around 100,000 people—who are engaged in spinning the yarn to weave into cloth. Mounting odds—such as lack of credit, power shortage and rise in competition from other silk-producing centres in the country—have put silk manufacturers of Bihar’s Bhagalpur, India’s so-called Silk City, on the brink.The industry is also unorganized with weavers taking credit from the market at 5% interest per month. With payments getting delayed they face a tough time. Over period of time, they have become one of the poorest community in the Bhagalpur.

Solution

The solution is promoting weavers organisation and building capacity among them to manage finances and share profits. BDT has taken a value chain approach for implementation of livelihood programme. It is providing services in all primary activities like inbound logistics (aggregating raw material like yarns of various kinds ), operations (production and processing like dyeing, calendaring), outbound logistics (aggregating products,packaging, transporting products like fabrics etc), marketing and sales (linking to buyers ), and services etc in all the programmes. It is provided support services like institution building, design development, technical knowledge, knowledge transfer, agri extension, procurement etc. BDT is promoting the institutions owned by weavers which will be matured in micro-enterprise group supported by marketing linkages from BDT.

Example

Bihar Development Trust has always adopted an inclusive and innovative approach towards implementation of development projects. 100% of BDT beneficiaries are economically poor while more than 50% of them belong to backward caste, schedule caste and minority communities. The most innovative approach has been the model which BDT has adopted for promote market linkages for its producer owned organization which will be provided capacity building support for institution development, design development , marketing linkages etc. The mutual benefit trust of weavers are step in the directions. The mutual benefit trust will earn profit by doing sales and distribute the residual profit it among the members. Slowly, the residual profit is expected to rise and stablise at a level which will provide a decent quality of life to all of its members. The income proposed has sufficient income to spend for welfare purpose as well as provide bonus to the members. The model will create 100s of grass root institutions with 1000s of community leaders which will be robust enough to withstand all pressures of most of market and political forces. The model will result in significant wealth creation for the members as most of the gains of the value additions are passed back to them. If BDT succeeds in its vision of implementing such models across Bihar, it will be second instance of wealth generation at such a large scale after AMUL in India.

Marketplace

Unorganised Business houses at Bhagalpur are the major competitors. The biggest challenge is the practice of buyers to take a sample from one supplier and gives it to different suppliers in an attempt to getbetter rates. There is no intellectual design rights protecting the designs of samples. There are very few non profit working among weavers like ASEED etc with an objective of bettering lives of weavers in Bhagalpur. Then, there is the threat of large orders getting rejected on small quality issues. The market in very brutal in this regard. One mistake, and your whole capital is wiped off and you are on roads.