The Orissa State Co-operative Handicrafts Corporation, the state owned corporation promoting sale of handicraft products both inside and outside the state, plans to introduce ‘Bar Coding System’ for various categories of handicraft products.
The corporation has already introduced item indexing for products manufactured by it.
Under the new system, the manual system of maintenance of register will be done away with at the sales outlets of the corporation (Utkalika). Besides, it will help in quicker assessment of stock position and expedite placing orders for replenishment of stocks in the stores. On the other hand, the system will be useful to verify the product of the corporation and price in case a customer wants to return an item.
As a measure in that direction the government plans to renovate the major sales outlets owned by the corporation on a pilot basis. Initially, the high transaction Utkalika outlets like Cuttack and Bhubaneswar will be taken up for renovation and will be provided with computers.
Sources said, the government has chalked out plans for streamlining the internal administration of the corporation, replication of the latest designs, conducting market survey and skill upgradation among others.
The state industry department organised orientation training for the branch managers of the 13 outlets of the corporation. They were imparted training for upgradation of their skills pertaining to sale of items and improving the customer environment in the outlets. A course was specially designed by the Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED), Bhubaneswar, for training the branch managers.
“The environment of the outlets should be perfect to receive a customer as we are targeting high end customers for handicraft products”, a senior official of the state industry department told Business Standard.
He said, the corporation achieved sales of Rs 6.08 crore in 2007-08 which increased to Rs 6.22 crore during the last fiscal. It has been given a sales target of Rs 8 crore in 2009-10.
Similarly, the corporation will follow a procurement policy focusing on the local artisans and craftsman making local products. Besides, the manpower position of the corporation will be restructured with some employees being offered voluntary retirement. The corporation is also contemplating to outsource certain services. It currently has about 111 employees.
While efforts will be made to make use of the Utkalika’s brand value, the corporation is in talks with the Orissa Tourism Development Corporation (OTDC) and Boyanika (co-operative stores run by the textile and handloom department) to push the sale of handicraft products.
