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Vivian Longki Rongpi
Diphu, May 2 (EMN): The growth of interest towards the love for traditional attires in the Northeast region are seen on the rise.
The demand for vibrant colourful traditional attires of various tribes of the region has increased but with very few who are capable of presenting hand woven goods.
Basapi Tokbipi, a local entrepreneur of Karbi Anglong shares a successful story of how her small business on weaving grew over the years.
Basapi Tokbipi who is quite popular among the women folks in Karbi Anglong is a resident of Rongcheklam in Diphu who deals with all kinds of male and female Karbi traditional attires.
Basapi Tokbipi while interacting with the Eastern Mirror correspondent narrated how her small business grew over the years.
The local entrepreneur said that she first started weaving in the year 2001 where her finished products were sold from house to house and village to village. She said initially the traditional clothes were bought on wholesale from other weavers.
She informed that, all her family members including her husband and four children are engaged with the weaving business. She said, 'we were able to give education to our children by selling our products.'
Presently her weaving enterprise has 11 weavers who works together at her residence and together manually make various traditional attires for women including Peni, Pekok, Vomkok and for men it includes Choi hongthor, Seleng. And as part of business extension the weavers also make decorated necklaces and earrings.
Not only has the enterprise succeeded in meeting the demands of the local buyers but they have also trained many Karbi women how to weave. She say many of the women who have been trained and educated on traditional weaving are now self employed.
While asking about their income, Tokbipi said that their annual income ranges from INR 5 lakh to INR 6 lakh. She also proudly said that the shop-owners from the market who they used to visit asking for bulk orders have now been reversed. She said, 'they now come t our house and give orders.'
The local entrepreneur lamented that till now on support have been given by the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) authority.
One of the weaver who is working at Tokbipi's place said that she has been working for more than two years and have had the privilege to learn how to weave Karbi traditional dresses.