The Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation Limited, popularly known as Poompuhar, has bagged the National e-Governance Silver Award for the year 2016-17 for transforming the department using Information Technology.
Poompuhar chairman and managing director Santhosh Babu told The Hindu, after receiving the award, “Today, our department is a complete online organisation. Everything happens with a click or touch.”
According to him, IT interventions in administration, marketing, in design and production is what helped bag this award. Poompuhar was short listed by the Government of India five months ago. Then a three-member team visited Poompuhar premises where they were shown all the e-facilities provided. “For the third round of evaluation, we were called to Delhi,” Mr. Santhosh said.
All employees connected
“We have 128 employees, including peons and all of them are connected. Decisions which were taken in 25 days are now being taken in few hours. The files in this department get cleared in few hours by officials using iPads,” he explained.
E-commerce has also played a vital role in taking Poompuhar to a global audience. Currently, Poompuhar products are sold through e-Commerce giants like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Shopclues, Crafts villa and India Mart. “Soon you will find us on Amazon too,” Mr. Santhosh said.
Foray into souvenir market
Going forward, Poompuhar is foraying into the souvenir and miniature market and for this it intends to rope into more designers especially with expertise in 3D. “These souvenirs will be below six inches. We are looking at iconic temples,” he said, adding that Poompuhar’s Design Research and Development Centre will work on this venture.
For the year 2013-14, the balance sheet of Poompuhar showed a turnover of ₹30.87 crore, the highest ever for the corporation. This year it intends to close its books at ₹42 crore.
