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ABSTRACT
The handicraftactivities are especially carried out in Kashmir Valley which is called the home of handicraftgoods and has earned a unique place in the world of Handicraftscenario. This sector provides employment opportunities and great potential to generate gainful employment within and outside the state. It is labour intensive sector, need less capital and is eco-friendly. Therefore, the social cost of handicrafts is much less than big industries. Kashmiri handicrafts are famous within and outside of the country because of their quality, art and design. The advantage of being labour intensive sector, handicrafts can be established anywhere both in rural and urban areas and can be taken offas a subsidiary occupation. In this paper an attempt has been made to evaluate the growth, performance and problems faced by the handicraftindustries during last two decades of turmoil in Kashmir valley with special focus on District Budgam.
Keywords: Small Scale Industry, Handicrafts, Coefficient of correlation.
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INTRODUCTION
The state of Jammu and Kashmir is famous throughout the world for its scenic beauty, bracing climate and craftsmanship skills. It was during the reign of Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin, popularly known as Budshash or the great king who ruled Kashmir from 1420-70 AD that handicrafts were introduced in Kashmir. The king Zain-ul-Abidin hired skilled craftsmen from Central Asia to train local inhabitants in a number of handicrafts which were till then altogether unknown to the people of the state. Since then historical legacies continued and got encouragement and patronage from different rulers, princess, visitors to the valley, thus skills remained passing on generation to generation. Jammu & Kashmir has comparative advantage in producing a high quality and worlds famous fabrics of Pashmina and Kani shawls, silken, woolen and cotton fabrics and crafts like papier-mache, wood work, Tila work, Sozni, Crewel, etc. These products are famous over world because of unique craftsmanship. The Handicraftsector has, however, suffered due to its unorganized structure, with the additional constraints of lack of skilled education, low capital, poor exposure to new technologies, absence of market intelligence, poor infrastructure and institutional framework. It is against this backdrop that present paper attempts to highlight the problems and prospects of this sector in J&K.
OBJECTIVES
The main objectives of the study are:
1. To...