May 23, 2018
Bengal Govt to expand training facilities for making ‘Joyee’ football
With the immense success of its ‘Joyee’ brand of football in the past one year, Refugee Handicrafts, an enterprise under the State Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise and Textiles Department, has now decided to expand its facilities.
According to the plan, the number of centres to train people on making of the Joyee footballs would be increased to five. The new training centre will be coming up at Baghnapara in Keshabpur village of the district of Purba Bardhaman. Infrastructure will be built to train around 200 people.
Currently there are four training centres – at Shibpur in Howrah district, at Tarakeswar and Chandannagar in Hooghly district, and at Alipore Central Correctional Home.
After going through the training programme, the women get raw materials from Refugee Handicrafts, which they take back home and manufacture footballs in their free time. Through this venture, manufacturing of football is gradually becoming a major industry in the MSME sector in Bengal.
It may be mentioned that Refugee Handicrafts was set up in 1950 with the aim of providing refugees with a means of livelihood. They used to prepare different handicraft products and the State Government used to support them to sell it in market. But later, the organisation had almost lost its significance due to the lackadaisical attitude of the Left Front Government.
It was then revived under the baton of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Her brainchild was to involve former footballers from the state to revive, through Refugee Handicrafts, the football manufacturing industry in the state. It was put into action by engaging the rural populace, mainly women, who were provided with training to make footballs.
Source: Millennium Post
