Eastern Home Industries, the carpet manufacturing unit of the Eastern Group located in the Rayan village of Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh, 
has one of the largest factories in India covering an area of 2,50,000 sq.ft. and 1,500 people working for the group. The company makes carpets for the Swedish furnishing chain IKEA.
The group was started in 1947 by Haji Abdul Hamid Ansari in Bhadohi in the name of Eastern Carpet Company. Its initial exports were made to England and later to other parts of Europe and the US. Currently Eastern rugs and carpets are exported to more than 30 countries, and the major customers are JC Penney, William Sinoma, Crate & Barell, etc. Its journey with IKEA started in 2008.
For Mr. Zafar Iqbal Ansari, son of the founder who is now Chairman of Eastern Home Industries, it took many years to finally convince the weavers about the advantages of organised labour and disciplined factory life. At Eastern, no work is carried home, ensuring there’s no child labour. This was partly due to the mandate from IKEA which made unannounced visits through third-party auditors.
Also, women have started working at Eastern’s factories where they are provided with safe and comfortable working environment.
Eastern has worked with IKEA and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, to come up with what it claims is a women-friendly loom which is partly mechanised and does away with the manual beating process while weaving. The new loom reduces the physical strain for the weaver by providing him or her with such an ergonomically designed seat that only the loom moves. Earlier the weaver used to finish a carpet in four days. Now this is done in just 2½ days. This means that more carpets can be produced in less time and the weaver is able to earn more. With the help of the sliding chair, a loom can be handled by a single person unlike by two previously.
Easterns carpets, rugs and dhurries are sold in most of the IKEA stores worldwide. Handloom and panja are the two types of rugs Eastern makes for IKEA. It was in 2010 that the carpets produced in Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Sonebhadra, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Jaunpur and Chandauli secured the GI (geographical indication) – a ‘handmade carpet of Bhadohi’ tag.