Red Panda now in soft toys

By Shivadeep Rai

Gangtok 24January: People can now take home the state animal of Sikkim Red Panda in the form of soft toys. Towards the promotion of Red Panda, the state animal of Sikkim, Directorate of Handlooms and Handicrafts (DHH) has initiated making red panda soft toys at its soft toy production unit. One can take home different kinds of red panda soft toys in the form of bags, pillow etc from the DHH’s sales emporium. The soft toys making in DHH was set off from August 2005. Besides red panda, there is lot more animals in soft toys including bear and dogs.

KS Bhutia, Additional General Manager of Sikkim Handlooms and Handicrafts Development Corporation (SH&HDC) informed that the soft toy production unit in DHH has its tie-up with ITMT (a private limited soft toys company) in Kolkata. The finished soft toys produced in the DHH are being marketed across Sikkim, Delhi, Assam, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Bagdogra and other places through SH&HDC. Bhutia informed that they sold soft toys basically red panda amounting to Rs 95,000 from the sales emporium in the month of October, 2008. The price of the soft toys ranges from Rs 30 to Rs 5000. Bhutia said we are basically focusing on making red panda soft toys for the reason that it is our state animal as well as its demand is very high.

The monthly production of soft toys in the production unit at DHH is 60-70 thousand in an approx, informed PR Ghimiray, Assistant Director for the Training Centre. Presently, 20 women in daily wage system are employed in soft toy production unit for making the soft toys. All of them are trained from ITMT. Ghimiray said that ITMT provides four months training in making soft toys for the students of Sikkim as per the provision of MoU. ITMT also provides DHH with the raw materials for making the soft toys. Ghimiray told that they will start providing training in making soft toys to the students of Sikkim at DHH by this year instead of sending them to Kolkata. He said that the demand for red panda soft toys is very high in the market though the supply is not satisfactory as compared to its demand.