Shri Mantu Chandra Das
The Market for Cane and Bamboo craft products
The Market for Cane and Bamboo craft products in this region is very good. The items made include furniture, cradles for babies, headgears, rain-shields, baskets for transportation/ storage of items, containers, dishes/ saucers/ spoons/ fork, fish/ animal traps, tribal costumes and related accessories, musical instruments such as flute/ trumpet/ mouth organ/ cup violin, tobacco pipe, tribal implements/ weapons and Mats. Bamboo/ Cane is also extensively used for construction of traditional houses. There is requirement of furniture, partitions, basketry, tabletop office accessories and lighting fixtures’ and other utilitarian products while ‘Fancy items’ baskets, planters, wall hangings, curtains, window screens on the one hand and small cups, mugs, and ‘jewellery’ also are in good demand.
Basketry is the one single item that is exported mostly to Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata. Guwahati too now has a few exporters. ‘Purbashree’ operated by the North Eastern Handicrafts and Handlooms Development Corporation Ltd. (NEHHDC) with its outlets in Kolkata, Guwahati, Shillong, Bangalore and Chennai..
Various organizations are today operating under the umbrella of Ministry of Development Of North Eastern Region (DONER). These include institutions like the North Eastern Council (NEC) that outlines the overall plan for developmental activities of the region, Finance institutions such as North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (NEDFI) and the North Eastern Handicrafts and Handlooms Development Corporation Ltd. (NEHHDC) also looks into the development of the handicrafts and handloom sector of the entire region.
These centres have encouraged a certain degree of mechanization by setting up ‘Common Facility Centres’, which the government supports through incentives for the purchase of simple machines and improved design of traditional hand-tools.
