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Shilpi Sansthan is an NGO in Sanganer that for 14 years has worked in the economic development of the surrounding rural area as well as the continued survival and competitiveness of hand-made textiles. It is supported by 13 members and run by 3 officers. All of these are members of the local textile business community and help to financially support the NGO.

The organization sees traditional textile manufacturing methods as under threat, and is working to save them and provide livelihood to the local area at the same time. This is done through providing a common front for some members of the local textile community and the organization and support of 12 self-help groups (SHGs) set up in villages around Sanganer.

These groups have been taught to do hand work on textiles and sell them to the local textile distributors. The NGO also makes connections between these labor forces and textile distributors, and connections between the distributors themselves with the goal of helping all.

 It was founded by its current secretary Brij Ballabh Udaiwal, who also owns a local textile distributor, Shilpi House of Textiles. This brings a certain business aspect to the NGO and its goals, although the NGO itself, however, cannot officially give financial support to the workers because of its status as a non-profit organization. Instead it organizes the groups and connects them to buyers, or Brij buys the textiles through Shilpi House of Textiles.

Shilpi Sansthan’s SHGs are made up entirely of women from the local farming communities who have come to Brij in order to start SHGs to create additional income. They receive training and support to do handwork on textiles and sell them to local distributors. The training period of each one of these groups lasts three years, during which time Brij buys the textiles himself though his business or finds other buyers. After this period it is the SHG’s own responsibility to find buyers and to get their fabric. Each SHG has their own officers who run the group on a day-by-day basis, and are trained to handle most of the marketing and buying. Even after the training period, Shilpi Sansthan also provides them with access to insurance at reduced premiums (partially paid for by Shilpi Sansthan) and helps them in dealing with banks. Since farming does not always offer security in Rajasthan, the women’s involvement with the SHGs provides some security in their livelihood.

[1] The training also ensures that even if the NGO disappeared, the women could still take care of themselves. The women in the SHGs said that if they weren’t here they would be in the fields; there are very few other options for additional employment in the area.

[2] Given Brij’s involvement with the textile industry in Sanganer, one of the main goals of the NGO is to develop the textile sector. He sees his work as giving back to the industry that has made him successful.

[3] Many workers and distributors in Sanganer work alone, without banding together to market their product. This means that instead of sharing resources on development and promotion or having a common platform with which to lobby the government, everyone suffers.

[4] Brij feels that a non-profit organization that could establish these links was needed in Sanganer. Shilpi Sansthan’s members include businessmen from the Sanganer and Bagru areas that support this idea and through it can work together as well as help out local, poor farming families earn a better livelihood. However, the two goals seem to be in conflict, as if the distributors pay the workers living wages, it cuts down on the profit of the very crafts sector Brij is trying to promote. This is where the non-profit aspect of Brij’s work comes in, through the organization. Members are getting access to a labor source. This source is already trained and organized to provide the business what it needs. Also, the organization provides common benefits to the members such as support in technical issues, pollution issues, and promotional issues.

[5] At the same time the labor force is organized into more powerful blocks and given access to benefits such as health care. Since the business people in Shilpi Sansthan are saving money on promotion and development by joining forces in the NGO, which need not turn a profit, and are getting access to pre-trained labor, money is supposedly left to better pay the workers and to make hand-made textiles more competitive on the market.

[6] It is not a perfect fix, and one or both of the goals probably suffer, as the members involved are still using business profits to support the organization, but it is one way of reconciling the two goals, and possibly ensuring the continued competitiveness of hand-made textiles.

Shilpi Sansthan is also concerned with the heritage aspect of its work. “Our aim is to preserve this industry in this particular area, without this what can we do, it’s our bread and butter, it is necessary to preserve this.”

[7] The hand-made textiles with which Brij are involved are under threat, and this work supports him and the other members of Shilpi Sansthan and provides livelihood for many of the people around Sanganer. Even if he and others must sacrifice some short-term profit, they see it as worth it to preserve the industry as a whole. Brij sees the heritage as the work itself, the techniques and the motifs developed over thousands of years. To him these need to keep developing while keeping parts of their old selves.

“We are working with hand-block textiles in Sanganer, so we are going to try to preserve our old heritage, like old textiles and old methods, but how can we develop them? In the past there were modifications in printing tables, in blocks, modifications in printing methods…we don’t want to leave [traditional techniques], without them we can’t survive, without any traditional design aspect, without any heritage…modern techniques and designs, but alongside old techniques and motifs.”

[8]So to Brij, part of the reason for working with textiles is their history and what they have been, but also what they are becoming, so long as there is a continuity. They would lose their values as something to be produced if not for some of the heritage aspects, but heritage doesn’t keep them from going forward in a way to help others. The sustainability of the industry and of the people involved, from the distributor to the workers, depends on them being able to work together to make the industry survive and make it competitive with other industries. Through bringing new ideas and modes of working together to Sanganer, it may be possible to bridge conflicting goals. Improving the way business is done in such a way that workers benefit, and ensuring the sustainability of the crafts skills through which they earn a livelihood.

MR.BRIJ B .UDAIWAL who comes from India has done a gigantic feat meticulously to promote and preserve Hand Block printing by vegetable dyes, the technique as ancient as the Indian civilization intact for the last 5000 years.

He resides right at the focal point of Sanganeri traditional textile printing units cluster.

When he was merely in teen’s, his father Shri . Madho .L .Udaiwal and mother who themselves are the masters in the cited field taught him well about this technique of textile printing. Since then he never halted and advanced as far as he could. Gradually he seasoned in hand block textile printing technology specifically through vegetables dyes and exclusively too. These dyes (vegetables pigments) adhere permanently upon the fabric either cotton silk or otherwise.

He was very aware about advent of ecological pollutions and their hazardous effects upon the globe .Since his early childhood .That is why he never used chemicals to deteriorate the world.

The real blood of Sanganer, Pink city runs in his veins.

One day he was working in his workshop, suddenly an idea sparked in his mind. He thought that printing is being done on one side of the textile. Can it be done on the both side of it? And Lo! He invented new concept. He did it on a silken scarf piece by hand block through vegetable dyes. For this feat he achieved prestigious District level competition award reward in the year 1986.Later in the year 1991,he got ‘National Award Certificate’ for the craftsmanship and his contribution to the department of ‘Block Printed Silk Saree’s by vegetable(natural)dyes. This award is given by Ministry of Textile India. For his spectacular contributions in the cited craftsmanship, he was further awarded ‘Jaipur Virasat Foundation Award’ to protect and prevent heritage Jaipur in the year 1999.

Last year 2004, he got Alankarit Shilp Utsav Participation Award.

He played a major role to protect the shifting of Sanganer Textile Printing units cluster to somewhere else and helped a lot to these Industries.

He has developed at-least fifteen self help women groups and providers’ jobs and training to new ventures.

His expertise is ‘silk printing through natural dyes by hand blocks.”

For the last twenty years he owns ‘SHILPI SANSTHAN’ situated at 6/46 Siliberi Ke Piche, Sanganer, Jaipur RAJASTHAN, INDIA phone-0091-0141-2731106.


SHILP’s last fiscal year’s turnover was Rs.ten million and its export was 20,000 USD.

Recently he has been deputed to ‘Netherlands’ for giving live demonstration in an Indian cultural event “traditions” in Emmen Zoo, Drenthe Province, the Netherlands from July 12 to Sept. 3,2005.

Moreover he is visiting UK for his far constructive and positive collaboration on the Techno craft Research Project at Southampton University.

There he should visit to see the practical implication of ‘Ink Jet Printing.

He is also going to Switzerland where he will show for public in the museum his work of traditional hand block on textiles. And also will run a workshop on 24th August 05 in the Museum.