Geo-tagging, e-commerce in offing for TN weavers

CHENNAI: The State government will start geo-tagging handlooms and powerlooms in Tamil Nadu for the benefit of stakeholders. The move will help devise policies and schemes that will aid genuine weavers besides helping them avail of government schemes and upgrade looms to produce value-added fabric.

The State Handloom and Textile Department is also planning to facilitate e-commerce between manufacturers and buyers. Also, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution will be created to maintain the data of handloom and powerloom products of the weavers.

A senior official from the State Handlooms and Textile Department told DT Next that geo-tagging of handlooms and powerlooms is the process of adding geo-code to each and every loom which will carry geographical information and owner photographs for easy collection of data on looms and clusters in the State.

Stating that powerlooms and handlooms are dispersed throughout the State in certain clusters, he said “the problems faced by powerloom and handloom industry tend to change with respect to their geographical position.”

Pointing out that geo-tagging helps in devising policies and schemes specific to the needs of the weavers and ensures genuine weavers reap the benefits, the official said the data collected will be used for cluster mapping and other business analysis activities.

He said the data will also be used to keep track of the quantity and type of products manufactured by the weavers and the buying trend of the buyers to understand the market demand and supply.

Explaining the web e-commerce application for the handlooms and powerlooms, the official said: “The manufacturers will be able to upload their product details with pictures and the buyers will be able to upload their requirements and get the details of respective manufacturers.

“Accordingly, the job contractors will be able to upload their requirements and get relevant details to complete their work. The same application is also going to be used to collect details from manufacturers (both manufacturing unit details and loom details) for geo-tagging purposes.”

On the ERP solution, he said the ERP software will capture data related to all handlooms and powerlooms in the State and production on a regular basis with a facility for online buyer-seller meet and a mobile app for the same to update the data besides developing a suitable dashboard.