Mamata Banerjee's Biswa Bangla on expansion spree

In the Mamata Banerjee versus Narendra Modi battle, it is advantage cottage industry. It has led to job generation, sustainable development, and promotion of indigenous culture.

This is the story of Biswa Bangla, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's pet product, which is taking on Prime Minister Modi's Khadi project.

Though Banerjee’s project may not yet match the scale of the Khadi initiative and is not present on major e-commerce sites, it is growing at 20 percent annually with a revenue of Rs 20 crore in last fiscal.

From reviving indigenous fabric to promoting sustainable fashion, Biswa Bangla is on an expansion spree in terms of the number of stores as well as product innovation; much like its experienced counterpart-brand Khadi.

“Biswa Bangla is about niche products that are about bringing back dying arts from the brink, we are not looking at flooding the market with our products because we work on the entire value chain," said Rajiva Sinha, Secretary, Department of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

"If we are looking at putting together something incredibly different from what is already sold in the market; we just don’t leave the artisans with the orders, we help them with better looms, better facilities for dying yarn, better supplies, and quality training. It is a whole back end project that we take up with a single new product we launch,” he added.

The USP

What is so niche about these products? Everything is about Bengal. The products range from Rs 100 to about Rs 3 lakh. Lower in the price bracket are handmade soaps and some other FMCG goods while the higher end comprises mostly of delicate and experimental textile and saris.

Biswa Bangla has eight stores across West Bengal and Delhi and is now venturing into newer territories. Alongside opening stores in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Jaipur this fiscal, Biswa Bangla is also stepping into Modi’s constituency Varanasi. “The new stores are expected to come up well within the fiscal,” said Partho Kar, Chief Consultant for Biswa Bangla.

Innovation 

Coming to the new products, Biswa Bangla is coming up with Nettle fibre and bamboo yarns that would be used to make clothes.

Dokra, which is a 4,000-year-old art of sculpting brass, nickel and zinc with the ancient technique of metal casting is being diversified into a range of products that include high-end jewelry and home décor items that are priced between Rs 15,000 and Rs 1 lakh.

The brand is making Pietra Dura Jamdani saris and Ramayana saris priced between Rs 1.20 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. Sticking to its ‘remaining niche’ policy, the brand plans to make only eight to ten of these in a year.

“The brand that started with 5,000 products in 2013 now has 10,000 products under its umbrella,” said Sinha.

Better livelihood

With the revitalisation of craft, design development and new innovations,  crafts in West Bengal are now finding new markets. Crafts makers whose only income avenue was the local handicraft fair, now benefit from sales through direct market linkages. “Around 12,000 craft makers saw their average income increase by around Rs 5,200  per month. For the top 30 percent, the average increase in income is Rs 12,000 per month,” said Sinha.

The improvement has also benefited in other ways.

Villages like Bikna and Dariyapur, where Dokra is made, used to have unhealthy working conditions, but are now tourist destinations.

The village of Naya in Paschim Medinipur district, home to 60 families of Dokra artisans, is popular with domestic and international tourists all-round the year. Similarly, the Charida village in Purulia district, where Chau mask makers live, has also become a tourism destination. The craft collectives have annual village festivals and in the last four years, about 8,000 international and domestic tourists visited these villages.