New Delhi: Wooden handicrafts from India sold abroad will soon carry unique barcodes with details of the wood used, an initiative of the textiles Ministry to build confidence among overseas consumers on legal harvesting of trees.
So somebody buying a decorative wooden elephant or a wooden handicraft that is made in India will be able to know the origin as well as history of the wood used to make that piece.
“In six months, we will do the web barcoding of wood products. Consumers will know from which tree it has come and how harvesting was done. This will build confidence in overseas buyers,” said Rakesh Kumar, Executive Director, Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts.
The council will be responsible for barcoding of all wood products meant for export.
The barcode will be in addition to the Vriksh (tree) certificate that the government issues on due diligence adopted by the exporters in procuring wood from legal sources for manufacturing handicraft articles and transporting them.
The Vriksh shipment certificate is a standard norm designed to allow companies to avoid trading in illegally harvested wood. The certificate is required by all categories of exporters who ship goods containing sheesham or rosewood from India.
The council also issues the Vriksh certificate.
Once implemented, the move to barcode wood products will make India the only country after Australia to put a tracing system in place for timber.
“In fact, Australia has wanted such a system from us for quite some time,” Kumar said.
The government is creating an information technology system for shipment-wise inspection to be made possible and is looking for a private IT company to run it.
The move follows enactment of tough laws against illegally harvested timber by several countries to deal with the globally widespread illegal logging.
Exports of wooden handicraft went up 14.13% to Rs 2,187.82 crore in April-September 2016 from Rs 1,916.95 crore a year ago. Sheesham products accounted for nearly 70% of exports.
Source: The Economic Times
