Ms. Zohra Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, recently unveiled Brand India Store and Indian Republic Store, innovative flagship stores organised by the National Textile Corporation Ltd. (NTC) in New Delhi. She also unveiled Stree Vijay, an NTC social empowerment initiative for women, Setu, its handloom cluster procurement initiative, and RAASA, its home furnishing brand.
Brand India Stores would primarily serve to fulfil all the retail needs of consumers for home and lifestyle products, ranging from home furnishings to home furniture to ethnic garments to lifestyle home products. The stores will have apparels, accessories, home decor and furnishings, furniture and antiques and Indian crafts and handicrafts.
In order to ensure the best designs, India’s ace designer Raghavendra Rathore has been roped in to help choose India’s best designers in various categories to design exclusively for NTC’s Brand India. Through this NTC is also promoting the young designer talent in the country.
The products will be sourced from various clusters in India, thus promoting local weavers through Setu which will ensure that handloom products are procured directly from weavers, eliminating middlemen. The initial stock has been procured through clusters with NHDC. NTC will expand its product portfolio and also uplift weavers. It aims to promote handloom products.
Indian Republic stores will sell quality merchandise at most affordable prices. The stores will bridge the gap between the branded apparel sector and the unorganized market. Initially the stores will have menswear range. It will in due course move on to other sectors.
NTC plans to expand its network in the coming months to cover the entire country. The stores, to be strategically located to ensure maximum visibility, will be renovated as per the current market trends so as to be comparable to any branded apparel store providing the proper ambience to customers.
RAASA is a home and bath linen brand of NTC which is being launched with the latest designs, trends and affordable price with no compromise on quality. The initial designs have been inspired by Nav-Ras, thereby providing home linen products for every mood of the customers.
NTC will sell its textile products like bed linen and bath linen, handloom products and, in due course, handicraft products through this initiative.