Back From The Brink: Maharashtra's Handwoven Ghongadi Blanket

Balu Zadkar from Chikalthan village in Solapur, Maharashtra, was contemplating winding up his traditional profession of Ghongadi blanket-weaving. Zadkar and his fellow weavers from the village were finding increasingly that there were no takers for their hand woven blankets, each of which took up to four days to complete and sold for Rs 300 to Rs 500 each.

With the advent of mechanised looms, these handwoven blankets were being ousted. "It is very difficult to compete with machine woven blankets in terms of production speed and cost,'' Balu told Gaon Connection.

But, help for these traditional weavers came in the form of Niraj Borate, a mechanical engineer from Pune, who, along with his team, initiated a community outreach project in order to connect with these rural artisans.

In 2016, Borate set up an e-commerce platform – Ghongadi.com – in order to revive traditional blanket craft forms, restore dignity to the weavers who made them, and create opportunities, not just for them but also their future generations.

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In the past five years, the e-commerce platform has created sustainable opportunities for the craftspeople and has also trained more than 1,700 women artisans as part of its venture.

With an initial capital of Rs 5,000. Today it has achieved a sales target of Rs 500,000 per month. Other than Ghongadi blankets from Maharashtra, the e-commerce platform is also helping other blanket weaving traditions such as the Kambali from Karnataka, and the Kambal from Andhra and Telangana. There are about 500 traditional blanket weavers across these states who are associated with Ghongadi.com.

"There are millions of artisans in India whose indigenous art forms and traditional crafts are dying. Due to the lack of an inadequate market ecosystem the newer generation of these artisans are now moving away from these art forms," Borate told Gaon Connection. "When we ventured into the craft sector, we learnt that there was a need for intervention to fix a few problems," he added.

Ghongadi blankets

Ghongadi blankets were once considered the pride of tribal communities in Maharashtra, and artisans like Zadkar have inherited the ancestral skill to weave them.

Rough in texture, the woollen blankets are woven on pit looms and then dyed with organic and natural dyes. The Dhangard or the traditional sheep rearers, usually weave them. These blankets are sturdy, warm and long lasting.

Ghongadi.com provides design interventions depending on the demand in the market and allocates production orders to the weavers. The weavers get anything between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 per blanket they weave. The weavers require anything upto seven to eight kilos of wool per blanket depending on the design and size.

The e-commerce platform in turn sells them for anything between Rs 1,500 and Rs 3,000. Apart from being sold across the country, these traditional blankets have recently been shipped to Australia, New Zealand, Dubai and the United States of America.

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Increased earnings

Weavers like Zadkar, who were on the verge of giving up their ancestral occupation, have given up the idea to abandon their craft and continue to weave. According to Zakade, Ghongadi.com has assured him that all the blankets he weaves will be purchased by the platform and he will be paid up to Rs 1,000 per blanket, depending on its quality.

Similarly, Anil Hazare, a Ghongadi artisan from Valnur village in Kolhapur district, is also happy with his association with Ghongadi.com since 2019. He earns about Rs 20,000 a month through the handwoven blankets. "It was difficult for us to market our products. I barely made Rs 7,000 a month. Now because of this online platform we can sell our product in any state,'' said Hazare happily.

"My work area is primarily dominated by women and sometimes this leads to difficulties in building trust with the various stakeholders in rural areas," Borate said. While that was a constant challenge, Borate added that there was nothing more sacred to him than upholding the trust of the artisans and helping them all he can.