Ranchi: Jharkhand Silk Textile and Handicraft Development Corporation or Jharcraft on Tuesday signed an MoU with a private start-up in Bihar, Banka Silk, to train the state's tussar weavers tailor trendy clothes and help them find wider online and offline markets.

Jharkhand director of industries K. Ravikumar and trained engineer-turned-entrepreneur Udayan Singh who founded Banka Silk, signed the MoU at the state secretariat in Ranchi in presence of chief minister Raghubar Das, chief secretary Rajbala Verma and development commissioner Amit Khare.

"Artisans should be properly trained to produce items in sync with today's market demands," chief minister Das said, adding that 30,000 weavers of Jharkhand should get good prices for their products. He promised administrative help for training, suggesting provisions should be made at the district level and arrangements should be made for well-known designers to help these weavers.

According to the MoU, Banka Silk will train Jharkhand's weavers to cut and stitch silk garments according to market demands and market clothes online through platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra and offline counters, Jharcraft managing director Manjunath Bhajantri later told this paper.

Bhajantri said many weavers cut and stitch clothes but would gain from more expertise and design sense. Many weavers don't know tailoring but want to learn. "We are hoping this value-add really boosts their income. They will get trendy designs too," Bhajantri said.

Known as a profit-making social enterprise, the three-year-old Banka Silk derives its name from the place in Bihar from where his founder Singh hails. Singh started this venture not just to revive the past glory of Banka as a silk centre, but also to rescue artisans from the clutches of loan sharks.