A Digital Village Chanderi

In 2008, a survey by Digital Empowerment Foundation on instigation of JyotiradityaScindia threw up distressing facts including weavers were being treated as labourers and earned a pittance; a few businessmen controlled the market; there wasn’t much demand for the products in the market and the youngsters were migrating to cities. This survey embarked the movement of digital empowerment in the town of weaves, and Chanderiyaan was born to establish a new Digital Village Chanderi. Chanderiyaan envisioned the digitization of Chanderi processes through active training and subsequent employability. This resulted in the launch of a design center to speed up the designing processes while retaining the traditional looms. Chanderiyaan customized the CAD CAM software and trained 20 weavers in using the software. Of these, three to four weavers were selected to train a further 100 weavers. Simultaneously, a design library was created with 10,000 traditional designs, some retrieved from old saris. This chain resulted into a digital revolution in Chanderi with maximum designing taking place through computer softwares. Digitisation gave the weavers a chance to create designs and replicate the same in the loom quickly. It also allowed them to visualise new colours and create contemporary variations without having to waste precious man hours.