India’s handicraft exports increased by more than eight per cent during the last fiscal, touching nearly Rs 31,000 crore, textiles minister Smriti Irani has said.

“According to the provisional data available, the exports of handicrafts have shown an increase of Rs 2,414.79 crore from Rs 28,524.48 crore to Rs 30,939.27 crore – an increase of 8.46 per cent in rupees term in 2015-16 as compared to previous year,” she said in the Lok Sabha.

Irani said a proposal for creating e-marketing platform for marketing support and service scheme has been received from export promotion council for handicrafts (EPCH) to help buyers and sellers to procure/sell/ promote products online.

The minister said that the Central Cottage Industries Corporation and Handloom and Handicrafts Export Corporation have undertaken digital marketing, as many state corporations are selling their handicrafts products through it.

The government is planning to launch a voluntary scheme for rendering quality and authenticity of handicrafts products at cluster and mega cluster level with a vision to differentiate genuine and socially – environmentally compliant handicrafts products.

She also asked the Textiles Committee to evolve a rating scheme for standardisation of handmade carpet manufacturing unit.