By James Khangenbam Imphal 12 March 2023
Mosquito nets of all types, bed sheet with sponge or plain, Pillows ( mondum montek), blouse, tops, enaphi all that are required for a lady while getting married as a traditional gift. Ranjana Emporium at Sagolband Moirang Leirak is one such place where you get all the items. Few years back people had to scale the market to gather all the items but the trend now is that you get all the items in a single stop.
Ranjana the lady behind the emporium have received State Award in Embroidery section during 2006-07. Sabitri National Award for Embroidery in 2007, Dr Ambedkar Fellowship Award 2007, and first position in an exhibition held at Hapta Kangjeibung 2008, and Chief Minister of Manipur handed over entrepreneurship successful women award with a cash prize of Rs 5 Lakh in 2013.
How the industry works
Raw Materials
Materials are from outsides the State, thread, clothes everything. Most of the raw materials come from Delhi and Ludhiana. Cotton Sari full, Silk sari, Half sari, Salwar, are made from the clothes weaved by weavers of Manipur with threads procured from outside the State.
Employment
Current employment is huge as outsource work is also part of the business. Wages also differ according to designs of the garments.
Marketing
Participation at trade fair in New Delhi helps a lot in connecting to potential customers. Ministry of textiles organizes such trade fair at Guwahati, Delhi etc. Ranjana use to send her students with her products for participation.
Sanatomba, a Silchar based business runner use to buy her material in bulk for supply in Silchar market specially mosquito net, bed sheet, cotton sari full, wangkhei sari full. In Vidyawada, Andhra Pradesh where her two daughters study in School products like Cotton sari full and Salwar became a huge demand.
The emporium has sold products to customers at France however they cannot go for the second supply as the customer wanted uniform designs in size for all the pieces they would be sending and the demand was in bulk. Since the working style was not fully automated machine the variation in the print length and breadth differ even in little so they dropped. In Mumbai, they have sold Salwars after receiving orders. In Jaipur 1200 cotton Sari were sold. They asked for the second time but limitation in the working and product output became the barrier. Most of the outside link comes from participation in Trade Fair at Prakirti Maiden, New Delhi.
Fashion Show
So far, Ranjana has organized three mega fashion show which she believe was the real reason why people in large number started liking her designs. She opined that such show promotes her products and people get to know her work and after the show people started to search for her products and she continue to work on supplying the products. Her shows were organized at B.O.A.T where huge spectator turn up couple of years back.
