Kathmandu, July 27

The SAARC Development Fund (SDF) has asked for sustainability plan of SAARC Handicraft Development Centre (SHDC) as the country has sought support from SDF for the operation of the proposed centre.

The centre will be run in public-private partnership. However, Nepal is seeking SDF’s support for operation of the development centre in the initial years, that is, at least for the first three years.

A committee formed under the leadership of Industry Secretary Surya Prasad Silwal and comprising private sector representatives is involved in implementation of the project.

The SHDC is slated to be established within three years as the government has provided land and allocated budget from this fiscal for the implementation of the SHDC project. The government has provided three ropanis of land in the premise of Department of Cottage and Small Industries, Tripureshwor and allocated Rs 50 million in this fiscal for building construction.

“We have been seeking SDF’s cooperation for the operation of SHDC in the initial years,” said Dharma Raj Shakya, president of Federation of Handicraft Associations of Nepal. “SHDC will sustain from its own resource in the long run, but we need resources to bring it into operation after the project is completed.”

He further said that the government and private sector committee have approached SDF to provide the necessary resources for operation of SHDC in the initial days, that is, until it is able to generate resources for sustainable operation.

“In this regard, the SDF has asked for sustainability plan and we have to submit the plan on how the SHDC would generate resources and sustain itself in the long run before we would be able to get the support from SDF for operation of the centre in the initial days,” Shakya stated.

SHDC will be developed as a handicraft village, where all the facilities related to handicraft will be provided. “There will be training centre for handicraft designing, testing lab and even an emporium,” said Shakya.

The Handicraft Design and Development Centre that is located within FHAN and the Handicraft Testing Lab in Nepal Bureau of Standard and Metrology will be shifted to SHDC.

The training centre in SHDC will be developed as an institute to provide training at the regional level.

SAARC member countries Bangladesh and Bhutan are also preparing to develop SAARC Handicraft Development Centres.

SHDC is expected to give a boost to the country’s handicraft sector as producers of handicraft products would get various facilities from the centre.

Currently, the country exports handicraft products worth around Rs 10 billion to over 80 countries. Pashmina, felt products, metal products, silver jewellery and woollen products are the major export items from Nepal. Around one million individuals are employed (directly and indirectly) in this sector and there are 1,500 handicraft manufacturing firms in the country.