Eight 'Biswa Bangla' retail stores, set up by the state government to promote local art and crafts, has generated revenues of about Rs 17 crore in the last fiscal, a state government official today said.
"We generated about Rs 17 crore revenue in the last fiscal and all the stores are doing well," MSME secretary Rajiva Sinha said today on the sidelines of launching an MCCI helpdesk for MSMEs.
"We are meeting our operational cost," he said.
Biswa Bangla is an initiative to promote the state?s dying arts and crafts, and it differs from other marketing companies running after numbers, Sinha said.
Expansion of the number of stores are dependent of supply of artisans involved in the particular art or product, he said.
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"However, we are looking forward to expand in airports and we have sought information about available space with Airports Authority of India in the airports managed by them," he said.
The brand is tapping shop-in-shop outlets in modern retail chains and has recently forged a tie up with Future Group.
However, the plan for running Biswa Bangla stores in the UK and China has been ruled out due to various logistics and import-export related hurdles, Sinha said.
Sinha said, Biswa Bangla will tap e-commerce with select products with their existing site of BiswaBangla.in.
He said Biswa Bangla do not have plans to tap e-tailers like Flipkart, Amazon or Snapdeal.
Biswal Bangla was conceived in 2013 and the first store to sell products under the brand came up in 2014 in Kolkata.
Some states have evinced interest in the business model of Biswa Bangla and are looking at adopting it, Sinha said.
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