Titan pitches Karigar centres as industry model

Hopes these centres will draw young artisans back to the profession

Titan Company officially opened four Karigar centres, including shop floor and accommodation for jewellery artisans, in the industrial town of Hosur on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border.

Titan claims that these centres, which will manufacture fine jewellery under the brand, Tanishq, represent the company’s commitment to improving the living and work conditions of jewellery artisans and an attempt to inspire competition to ‘raise the bar’.

The four centres in Hosur will accommodate 300 artisans. The Karigar centres are an extension of an idea the company started nearly a decade ago in the form of Karigar parks.

The centres, spanning over 11,000 sq. feet each, were inaugurated by C. G. K Nair, Director, Titan, who said the company wished to provide world-class facilities and amenities for people across the entire value chain.Tanishq contributes to 70 per cent of Titan’s overall sales, and is the largest listed player in the segment.

In an interaction with The Hindu , C. K. Venkataraman, CEO, Titan Jewellery Division, said that he hoped the centres would serve as a model for others.

“It is a fact that the industry has not paid attention to the conditions of the karigar community, which has made it an unattractive profession for the young. Apart from being a social concern, this is a response to the fact that this immense and skilled talent pool is in the process of drying up,” said Mr. Venkataraman.

A majority of the workforce here was from West Bengal. Unlike diamond manufacturing, which accounted for 30 per cent of Tanishq’s jewellery retail, the gold manufacturing chain was largely unorganised and operated out of dingy and hazardous workspaces, with little progress in tools and machinery, he explained.

Productivity benefits

Titan representatives, who took the media on a tour of the centres, which have been operational for a few months now, said that there were also huge productivity gains.

By simply setting up an assembly line and streamlining processes, productivity has increased by “multiple folds”. Run by vendors, each centre here produces roughly around 60-70 kg of fine jewellery every month.

When asked about the slump in net profits reported in the quarter ending December, Mr. Venkatraman said that it reflected reduction in demand due to customer sentiment.

“Our research shows that market sentiment is weak. Gold is after all a high-ticket item.”