EDII trains over 550 Bijoypur silk artisans in West Bengal’s Murshidabad under SFURTI

The project, which is being undertaken under the cluster development scheme SFURTI of Ministry of MSME and Khadi Village Industries Commission, Govt. of India is three years long and will work on empowering rural artisans through capacity building initiatives.

The aim of the project is develop Mulberry Silk Cluster through intervention program in three villages of Murshidabad.

The district of Murshidabad is traditionally known for its silk production. However, most of the artisans working in this area are socio-economically poor and are engaged in traditional reeling and weaving activities.

Through its interventions, EDII is reviving the silk cluster by providing technical support to more than 550 artisans, where 226 are women and more than 40% are SC artisans.

Speaking about the project, Subir Roy, Cluster Development Manager, EDII, said, “The project aims at empowering the rural artisans through capacity building program and  establishment of Common Facility Centre (CFC) in the areas of designing, printing and diversification into fashion garments making facilities apart from reeling, twisting and weaving. With the project interventions it is estimated that the turnover of the cluster will reach more than 8 Crores annually in the next five years compared from its present turnover of 2 Crores. The income of the artisans will also rise up to Rs.10, 000 per month from their present average monthly income from Rs.3500.00”

Explaining about the approach, Roy, said, “Keeping this in mind, EDII has designed the project with 2 major components:  Soft and Hard Intervention. Under soft interventions, the emphasis is on imparting awareness camp, networking with Professional Institutes and traders, skill development training of the new artisans etc. Under hard interventions, development of raw material bank and setting up of Common Facility Centre (CFC) with technical support will be carried out.”