The Hindu : Business : Uravu project among those chosen for Exim Bank support

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 23, 2005

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Business

Uravu project among those chosen for Exim Bank support

K. A. Martin

Agreement to help showcase products across the globe

KOCHI: Uravu, a Wayanad-based non-profit trust, is among three organisations in the country with which the Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) has signed memoranda of cooperation through which these organisations get business building support as well as opportunities to display their products using the Exim Bank network in different parts of the world.

Under the agreement, samples of Uravu's signature product Script-O (a pen made from bamboo reeds and used widely as a gift item) has found its way to showcases at the International Finance Corporation office in Washington.

K. Muthukumaran, general manager, Exim-Bank, said here on Wednesday that Uravu pens would be displayed at the Bank's branches in African countries, the United Kingdom, Budapest and Milan among others. The pens were already on display at the Mumbai office of the Exim Bank.

He was speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the ongoing Kerala Bamboo Festival 2005 here on Wednesday.

The Exim-Bank was set up in 1982 to finance, facilitate and promote foreign trade and was the principal financial institution in the country that coordinated the working of institutions engaged in financing exports and imports.

Quality packaging

He said the Bank had entered into an agreement with the Madurai-based Development of Humane Action (DHAN) Foundation, Madurai, which worked on palm leaf products. The Bank had a similar agreement with Basix, a new generation livelihood promotion institution operating out of Hyderabad. Basix worked with about two lakh rural poor in rural Andhra Pradesh developing products from cotton.

He said Uravu, located in Thrikkaipetta village, promoted employment opportunities for disadvantaged social groups, especially traditional bamboo artisans, paraplegic patients and tribal communities comprising mostly women.

Mr. Muthukumaran said one of the problems that dogged rural industries in India was the lack of consistent quality. Packaging was another. To achieve consistent quality in the case of the Script-O pens, Uravu and the Exim Bank had sought the help of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, who would help introduce machines and tools for increased production.

He said a two-day workshop was being organised early January in Wayanad on packaging rural products in which an expert from the Indian Institute of Packaging, Bangalore, would take classes. The help of the National Institute of Design too was being sought by the Exim-Bank to help the rural artisans, said Mr. Muthukumaran.

A spokesman for Uravu said that currently about 200 pens were produced daily. With standardisation of the process, production was expected to go up to about 1,000 pens a day. Currently the Trust worked with 100 self-help groups, mostly comprising women, operating six micro enterprises. Besides, 120 had been employed under products generated through the Rashtriya Shram Vikas Yojana.

The spokesman also said that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NBARD) had come forward to sponsor capacity building programmes, including training of 20 master craftsmen, who would, in turn, act as trainers for the Uravu projects. NABARD was also sponsoring a visit of 60 artisans from Wayanad district to the Kerala Bamboo Festival as an occasion to expose the group of rural artisans to the larger Indian market.

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