Gujarat Gram Haat, Ahmedabad - Commissionerate of Rural ...

Gujarat Gram Haat, Ahmedabad
Summer Festival
A Brief Overview of Summer Festival
Huts to Haat to Hearts

Summer Festival
A Brief Overview of Summer Festival
Gujarat Gram Haat, Anjali Cross Road,
Ahmedabad
April, 2006

Abstract
As India is a country full of colours, cultures and arts. From
North to South and from East to West, each and every region has
its own arts exhibiting its rich culture and tradition. These rich
arts have in the hands of rural people. Their arts have been a
source of earning their livelihood. However, lack of
infrastructure, lack of marketing abilities and lack of exposure to
the market have resulted into erosion of our artistic products
resulting into poor life standard of rural artisans.
Though the handicrafts of Gujarat have found a global appeal,
the artisans have continued to stay exploited. Neither are the
artisans able to get the right prices for their products, nor do
they have any marketing support or a steady source of income.
Lack of permanent markets, their inability to participate in trade
fairs and their absolute dearth of communication skills have
forced these gifted men and women to turn nomadic and shift to
other sustainable employment activities.
As a part of promoting these artisans especially people living
Below Poverty Line, an initiative has been taken by Gujarat Gram
Haat by way of organising Summer Festival, 06. The main
objective of organising this festival is to develop Gujarat Gram
Haat as a hub of handicraft products in the city of Ahmedabad.

This review report begins with the introduction of the Gujarat
Gram Haat and objectives behind organising Summer Festival,
06. As we go ahead, further in-depth information regarding how,
where and when this festival have been organised, has been
provided. Further, steps taken for promoting these festivals,
details of the workshops and cultural activities have been
provided in subsequent stages. The report concludes with the
recommendations to improve the statues of BPL people and the
brand building of Gujarat Gram Haat. The participants’ sales
figures have been enclosed in the annexure.

Contents
Introduction 1
Objective of the Festivals 2
Benefits of the Festivals 2
Festival Dates 2
Venue of the Festivals 3
Major Attractions of Summer Festival 3
Participants in the Festival 4
Facilities to the artisans 5
Publicity and Advertisement 6
Walk-Ins 7
Food Court 8
Other Added Attractions 8
Invitation to prospective Bulk Buyers 9
Work Shops 10
Exposure Visits 13
Designers’ Visit 13
Success of the events 14
Recommendations 14
Conclusion 15
Annexure A (Sales Details of Summer Festival, 06) 16

Introduction:
The Gujarat Gram Haat model has been constituted with a
strategy that is market-driven and an approach that is artistcentric.
The Gram Haat concept goes beyond showcasing the
skills of the artisans. The main objective of the Gram Haat is to
eliminate middlemen and to help the artisans reach mainstream
markets.
In order to make this objective successful, Gujarat Gram Haat
Society has organised the Summer Festival, 06 in the month of
heat “April”. In the month of February and March Gujarat Gram
Haat was facing the problem of lack participation of
artisans/SHGs. Since the summer season presents great
opportunity for handloom products and food products, it has
been decided to organise Summer Festival to explore the
available opportunity,
The festival was the grand success for the Gujarat Gram Haat.
Gujarat Gram Haat has not only caught attention of the mass of
Ahmedabad but could also achieve remarkable sales figure.
However the sale was not come true on the expectation because
of the lower range and
quality of available products.
Further,
exceptional
response was received from
the artisans to participate in
the fairs going to be held at
Gujarat Gram Haat.

Objective of the Festivals:
• The main objective of organizing this festival is to promote
handicraft, handlooms, wood carving products, food items
and other products produced by BPL artisans of Gujarat to
alleviate poverty.
• To promote the Gujarat Gram Haat as the handicraft hub in
the city.
• To provide the artisans with information on current trend and
likely changes in the future trends to compete in the current
market.
Benefits of the Festivals:
• The main beneficiaries of this festival were the BPL artisans.
• It has also built the brand name of Gujarat Gram Haat among
local community.
• These kinds of festivals were able to pull in large number of
walk-ins in the Gujarat Gram Haat.
• It has allowed local society to see and buy the handcrafted
products at highly competitive prices directly from the
artisans.
Festival Dates:
Summer Festival, 06
From 1 st April to 30 th April, 06
Extended up to 15 th May, 06

Venue of the Festivals:
Gujarat Gram Haat
Next to IOC Petrol Pump.
Anjali Cross Road,
Vasana, Ahmedabad
Major Attractions of the Summer Festival:
• Various Handloom Products
• Terracotta water purifier and fridge
• Leather toys
• Artistic handcrafted wooden toys,
puppets & other products
• Bamboo products from Valsad
• Appliqué work of Utter Pradesh
• Bamboo work and Shital patti from
Assam
• Beadwork and Minakari products of
Ahmedabad
• Puppet show with Social messages
• Ethnic Food (Rotla, Baingan Bhartha,
Khichdi-Kadi, Lasun Chattni, Khichhu
etc.) (live cooking)
• Special Workshop for BPL artisans (Marketing, Marketability,
usages of different materials etc.)

• Importance and advantage of Gujarat Gram Haat for the Rural
BPL artisans by success story by the artisans themselves (2-
3 artisans experience sharing)
• Designers’ week (Special invitation to designers from NID,
NIFT and Other institutes)
Participants in the Festivals:
For the festival, the artisans from all over Gujarat have been
invited to participate. Further, invitations were also sent to the
Rural Development Departments of Assam and Rural
Development Department of Utter Pradesh. The main reason for
inviting out-side artisans to offer wide variety of products to the
customers coming in the Gujarat Gram Haat. In the Summer
Festival, total 38 participants have participated. 2 artisans have
participated from the state of Utter Pradesh and Assam.

Snapshots of participants of Summer
Festival
Facilities to the artisans:
At Gujarat Gram Haat, utmost care has been taken to facilitate
the artisans. Apart from providing them the bedding facilities,
electricity, chairs, table, warehousing facility and water facility
have given to the participants. All these facilities were provided
at no cost. Further, the artisans are also given the mattress to
display their products. The Marker boards were also put for the
food stall holders.

Publicity and Advertisement:
For the publicity of the Summer Festival, various medium of
publicity have been utilised. Total 1,00,000 handbills were
distributed in the surrounding area of Gujarat Gram Haat such as
Vasna, Paldi, Navrangpura, C G Road, Manekbag, Nehrunagar,
Judges Bunglow and Satellite. The Channel Tickers were rolled
in the local channels extensively for one month during the
festivals. Total 50 banners were put at various cross roads to
attract the mass at the event.
Sr
No.
Medium of
Publicity
Manner Frequency Impact
1 Print Handbills 100,000 Strong
2 Outdoor Banners 50 Good
3 Television Channel tickers 1 month Strong
Handbill used for Summer
Festival

Channel Tickers for Summer
Festival
Walk-Ins:
The Summer Festival’s footfalls were remarkable. In weekdays
around 2,000 to 2,500 footfalls have been registered whereas in
the weekends around 4,000 footfalls were there. The publicity
impact shows here.

Food Court:
In order to cater to the needs of local community for ethnic
traditional food, a food court was also set up at Gujarat Gram
haat. This food court was comprised of 5 bamboo huts. Each of
these huts was given to the SHGs to run an outlet serving ethnic
food such as Bajri na rotla, Makai na rotla, Bengan Bhartha, Sev
Tameta nu Shaak, Khichadi-Kadhi, Matka Dahi-Chaas, Lasan ni
Chatni, Ghee-god, Papad and many more.
Some Snaps of food court
Other Added Attractions:
Apart from the above mention attractions, puppet shows with
social messages were organised during the weekends in the
festival. This led to increase in the walk-ins substantially and as a

esult of it, increase in the sales. Moreover the artisans have also
demonstrated their art in public every evening.
Invitation to prospective Bulk Buyers:
As the part of promoting the art of rural BPL artisans and SHGs,
exporters, wholesalers and bulk buyers were also invited in the
festivals. During the festivals, the total bulk orders of worth Rs.
1,35,500 /- have been obtained.

Work Shops:
In order to improve the skills of the artisans and to provide them
with the design, products and marketing, two work shops were
also organised. They were…
• Workshop on Marketing
• Product Development workshop
• Food stall improvements
Workshop on Marketing:
The marketing workshop was a kind of class room training
where the artisans were taught different marketing
techniques by Marketing Executive of Gujarat Gram Haat
and other field experts. Discussion for the same has been
done within the groups of participants. The workshop
consists some of the points as follows.
• Problems in Marketing of the products for SHGs
• Problems identification in the present products
• Marketing of the different products
• Display of the products
• Salesmanship
• Know your customers & market
• Attitude towards the customers
• Exposure through Internet & website for the products

• Discussion within the artisans about the marketing of their
products and success
• Advantages for participating in Gujarat Gram Haat
Product development workshop:
Many of the BPL artisans are facing the problems
in marketing and selling their products due to poor
quality, consistency of the products and lesser
product range. Keeping these reasons in mind a
workshop during the stall timings has been
organised. In the workshop various points have
been discuss on individual/SHGs’ products on
various issues such as problems in the present
products, consistency in quantity and quality of
products, use of new materials, innovation in the
products, preparing products what customers want
etc. During the discussion almost 10 to 15 new
products have been explore which can do good in
the market.
• Problems in the products
• Affects on sale-profit.
• Do the products needed in the market?
• Compete with the best products to make it
improved
• Know what customers want!

• Find out the new materials and designs in the
present products
• Internal discussion for the products improvements
(New designs)
• Take some ideas from other states’ products and
others products
Food Stall improvements:
Food is one of the major attractions for any fairs or
exhibitions to attract more footfalls. Ethnic dishes
of the food have also helped to carry out more
crowd in the festival. SHGs have been trained on
some important issues such as hygiene, quality,
serving and packaging by field experts and
professionals.
• Discussing about the menu
• Quality, hygiene, service, accounts and other
related things
• Improvement in packaging
• Cost cutting techniques
• impart knowledge to the SHGs for preparing other
delicacies

Exposure Visits:
Two group of artisans were sent to Law garden market
(handicrafts) and other prominent places for the similar products
to get the ideas of present trends and the quality if the products.
After that a discussion have been organised for the same within
the group and professionals.
Designers’ Visit:
Different designers from NIFT and NID were invited during the
festivals to give some of their valuable suggestions and other
inputs in the present ranges of products and take the advantage
of their expertise.
x
Designer’s interaction within the groups

Success of the events:
The sales registered during this festival are depict the grand
success of the events. A total sale of Rs. 4,07,825.00 was
recorded including bulk order worth Rs. 1,35,500.00. In the
Summer Festival, total 38 artisans/SHGs have participated out of
which two participants were from Assam and Utter Pradesh.
Undoubtedly food has played a major role in carrying out more
crowds.