The Cottage Industry In India

Large portion of the rural population of India, acting as one of the major source of economy is supported by cottage Industry which is responsible for having hugely preserved cultural heritage of India. Cottage Industry not only maintains a distinct identity of its own but also provides it with unique platform to display its specialty when there is a tough competition faced in the International market. It is only because of the cottage industry that the indigenous goods can fairly compete with foreign goods due to the impression of the Indian culture that makes them unique.

For providing gainful & productive avenues of employment to the growing labor force and relieve unemployment in the rural backward areas, a massive program of the industrialization

They can help a lot in solving the problems of unemployment & poverty. For more than four months in a year, our cultivators have no work to do. Cottage industries can give the cultivators useful employment during spare time. Cottage industries can successfully compete with machine made goods, if they are run on modern lines. Periodic exhibition of the goods manufactured by cottage industries and development of cooperative system can help in solving of the problems of capital, raw material and marketing, and then they would easily withstand the

These helped India in successfully establishing trade relations with Greeks, Chinese and Arab Merchants .Even during the period of medieval India, Indian craftsman and artisans flourished well under the rule of the Turks, Afghans and Mughal dynasties. But from the advent of the East India Company, there was a drastic change in running of these cottage industries. For an urge to have more luxury items at the cheapest prices the European traders & merchants exploited the Indian peasants to a great extent due to which these cottage industries witnessed a severe lash to their production. Later the Industrial revolution in the west also gave a fatal blow to these economies and led to a considerable decline in the number.

Since then, after several years of Indian independence, today every state in India has its own set of cottage industries whose art and craft items depict the traditional art form and the culture of that particular state. Indian cottage industries are destined to play a significant role in the economic development of the country while keeping in view the potential for employment generation, preservation of the cultural heritage and the dispersed industrial activity into the backward