Uthhan – An online platform for Indian artisans

Uthhan is an Initiative to empower Indian underprivileged artisans, by ensuring profit from artifact & handicraft sales go directly to the artisan families without any middlemen and any hassles.

Uthhan was founded in mid of 2012 when Mr. Leemon Ravi visited one of the tribal artisan colonies in Kerala. He has seen those artisan families over there were ready to give their products in exchange only for their daily food. Their condition was so pitying that they had no place to sleep or preserve their products. Later, he has found out that these artisans are the third-largest population in India and still underprivileged because of middlemen & less knowledge on product marketing. The value of their products is not reaching them because of middlemen interference. The younger generation is also not taking up this skill and promoting as because of fewer opportunities. There will be a huge shortage of artisans in the future.

How Uthhan helps artisans?

 Uthhan will eliminate the role of middlemen and distributors and the products directly reaches the end-users. Artisans can enroll free of cost and upload their products with prices to the platform.
Uthhan is doing a campaign called “Karigar Apnao Sanskriti Bachao Abhiyan” where any volunteers, customers, social activists, or patriots can come up and Raise an Artisan family by sponsoring or donating them.

The handicraft artisans of Tripura, a large majority of them, are known for their perfection of craftsmanship, excellence of design and form and an unsurpassed sense of colour. The different ethnic groups of the state are perfect in bamboo and cane work. Some of the attractive handicrafts of the state are room divider, decorated wall panels,silver jewellery, lamps, furniture of cane, ornamental articles, bamboo dining table mats and floor mats. The artisans of Tripura have wonderful fabrics with great designs. The typical handloom consists of vertical and horizontal stripes with colourful embroidery.

Each tribe of Tripura is famous for its own special handicrafts. Handloom and cane and bamboo are the oldest industries here. The craftsmen pick up simple materials such as cane, bamboo, palm leaves and yarn and fashion extremely beautiful articles out of them. The land of Tripura produces abundant bamboo and cane which are used to make different types of Handicrafts like chairs, tables, mats, hats, bags, hand fans, containers etc. These durable articles are exported to different countries where they are in great demand. The tribes of Tripura wear their own handmade clothes with great colour combinations and designs. Risa and Riha are the famous traditional items of Tripura. But Tripura artisans are marooned because of resellers and middlemen. The corona pandemic has further added to their misery. Shortage of rawmaterials,logistic issues, ignorance about  product presentation and technological incapability  pushed them to financial agony.

Almost 30000+ artisan families from Kerala, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Andhrapradesh, Delhi, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi, Punjab and Westbengal are already getting benefits from Uthhan.  

Uthhan mobile application is available in English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu. Uthhan is aiming to support more than 1lac artisans by 2021.

“The handicraft items of Tripura has an outstanding demand in India also in the world.  But the artisans of Tripura are not benefitted because of middlemen. Through this initiative I am trying to empower our North East artisans by giving them their value of products directly. Technology and sales training also is provided with the help of DC handicraft, Tripura”, said Ms. Digantika Deb, Uthhan Tripura State Coordinator.