Abstract
Globalization has opened up the economy at a very high speed, as a result of that information technology has opened the sphere a global village and have facilitated global communications network that transcends national boundaries. Due to ICT there is a dramatic change in the society. Handicraft industry is the second largest industry which provides employment to rural and underemployed agricultural laborers. But large group of artisans are in the unorganized sectors like handicraft and cottage industry and these handicraft artisans are in inaccessible area of rural India. Majority of artisans are still bounded to traditional way of living so they are not enjoying the modern world benefits and adopted to modern scenario. These artisans are not access to available technology or participation and to promote for the contribution of societies development and these artisans are less engaged with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) than common man. Information and Communication Technologies are for everyone and handicraft artisans should equally benefit to the advantages offered by the technology to the products and processes.
 Almost in all the States of the India, people are expert in producing handicraft items traditionally. The worth of Indian handicrafts in the international market was realized when the exports crossed Rs. 300,274.12 crores in 2012-13. The handicrafts sector has made considerable contribution to the Indian economy through exports. ICT brings success to marketing and export activities and production part of the craft. But knowledge on marketing technology was poor for artisans. So, an attempt has been made in this paper to bring out the problems and opportunities of artisans in the handicraft industry with the usage of ICT, and the opportunity for exporting to foreign countries and to help artisans improving their standard of living and thus the economy.
Highlights
Knowledge is the only source which brings prosperity and liberates people from poverty and empowers them
This prompts the researcher with number of questions. Whether these artisans are interested in modern marketing? Whether this artisan’s possess knowledge on modern product design, adoption of new technology etc.? How Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help these artisans to upgrade for the global scenario? These questions need an answer and this study will try to bring out the facts
The entire artisans family was contacted to find out the socio economic condition, production and marketing problems, knowledge on ICT for their improvement and their contribution towards the family improvement were analyzed by focused group discussion and interview
Summary
Knowledge is the only source which brings prosperity and liberates people from poverty and empowers them. Production process was given importance by artisans and produce in mass They always depend on the middlemen for their marketing activities, so they are economically weak as they were exploited by the major players like entrepreneur/mastercrafts men. Cost incurred for production is less as resources are available in local area Because of this the industry is classified as small scale industry or household industry and even called as women-focused craft. The craft is produced on mass production so the artisans have fulltime work Capital investment for this industry is less, so artisans can start their own business on small scale. Demand and supply for the craft can be managed, as this product could be stored in their respective home and sold whenever necessary, later
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