NEW DELHI: There should be an effort to upgrade skills of tribal artisans so that they can be entrepreneurs, said Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda.
He was speaking at the inauguration of an e-symposium “Emergent North-East India: Strategic and Developmental Imperatives in Handicrafts” organized by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research and Analysis, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Shillong on Friday.
The e-symposium is conceived as a platform that brings together policymakers, scholars, institutions, corporates and civil society organisations to discuss and deliberate development initiatives in the north east.
He said India could not make its due place in the global market due to lack of proper marketing management.
Focussing that up-skilling was now the need of the hour, Munda said a proper working plan should be prepared to meet the market needs as a lack of proper working plan often results in low quality products with high costs.
“We should focus on skill upgradation of our artisans and find out as to what is the global market potential of the products of our artisans,” he said.
He said the products should be attractive and of high quality but their costs should be less. Bamboos in northeastern states can be used in making better quality of agarbattis and the burden of import can be lessened.
He said that all north eastern states can be converted in to organic states to produce quality organic agro-products.
Munda stressed on the need for lesser dependence on foreign products and that institutions like IIMs and others can play an important role in this regard by searching global markets.