Social Orientation

In the recent past, there has been a welcome quality change in
the outlook among the Indian carpet dealers. Started by Anisa
Carpets Limited, who were the first to apply for a certificate in
handmade carpet industry for
Social Accountability from BSI and got it only last year which
is proudly displayed in their Bhadohi and London office.

A few months back I met Indra Mohan Srivastava, Management
Consultant of Constraarch - Mansys, who told me that many
carpet exporters have applied for this certificate in recent
past and SA 8000 certificates will be bestowed to them
in the near future. 

Indra Mohan told me that Consraarch has two offices in
Uttar Pradesh, one in Moradabad and other in Lucknow.
He further told me that Contraarch are enlisted consultant
with New York Based Social Accountability International (SAI)
and without their recommendation this certificate can not
be issued. He visits Bhadohi often to complete the cases
and also to market this service.  

I believe this is a very welcome sign and hope that more
and more carpet dealers will get connected to this and
ISO. They shouldn't only get connected to it just to observe
the by laws set by BSI but they are needed to go some
extra miles. 

There are many justifiable reasons for taking that extra
mile. One genuine reason is that we are carrying with
us a stigma - stigma of child labor - on our shoulder for
over a decade. I believe by going that extra mile will
help us mitigate this dishonor.  

We need an image makeover. That is possible only
when we prepare ourselves for going that extra
distance. SA 8000 and ISO can help us greatly for
that image change.  

We have already suffered greatly. No one believes
us if we say that our carpets are free from child labor.
For over a decade we are using labels declaring that
carpets being exported are free from child labor.
When will we get rid of this practice? Perhaps,
SA 8000 has come our way as a blessing in disguise.
It, most probably, is going help us get rid of our
tarnished image. Won't it?

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Notable note:

Do you know that Sachin Tendulakar's total
tax exemtion was Rs. 8.87 crore during
1998-99 and 2004-05?