Weaving relationships

SME FOR BEST CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Jaipur Rugs Company

Turnover (2008-09): Rs 67.75 crore PAT (2008-09): Rs 2.06 crore No. of employees: 210 (in association with 40,000 artisans) Year of incorporation: 1990 Headquarters: Jaipur Company profile: Manufactures and promotes hand-knotted rugs

Nand Kishore Chaudhary, CMD: “We have tried to collaborate the best of East with the Western world”

Taking care of its stakeholders—the artisans—has ensured that if not its carpets, the company will surely keep flying high.

Back in late ’70s, Nand Kishore Chaudhary turned down the job of a cashier in the United Bank of India branch to start his own tiny carpet manufacturing unit with just two looms and a few artisans— an industry starved of skilled workers and littered with malpractices.

“Considering that the industry size was insignificant with huge pent-up demand, the growth potential looked promising,” recalls Chaudhary, CMD, Jaipur Rugs Company. The first thing he did was to remove the exploitative middlemen from the whole process. This helped weavers to not just raise their incomes, but gave them direct access to the company.

In 2004, JRC started an NGO, Jaipur Rugs Foundation, for weaver’s training and skill upgradation to make its products compatible with the international market. “We identified huge gaps in the carpet industry in terms of lack of skilled manpower. Being one of the big players, we realise that by filling these gaps, we will be not only uplifting the lives of many artisans, but also producing good talent for us,” he points out.

Once they get trained, weavers typically earn between Rs 100 and 120 per day as compared to the measly Rs 30 they used to pocket with the middlemen in the picture. “We have tried to collaborate the best of East with the Western world through the development of a global supply chain, built around mobilising human skills,” explains Chaudhary. And the loyalty of the weavers means that it’s not just a good business, but also an astute one.