Bengal's traditional tant goes global

Bengal's quintessential tant sari is all set to hit the global market through American e-commerce giant Amazon. For those Bengalis who are settled abroad and crave to wear their very own tant, here's the good news.

Tantuja, under West Bengal State Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society, will work together with Amazon-United States for overseas promotion and marketing of the products.

It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had revived Tantuja which once suffered huge financial losses.

The organisation has now made record operational profits and its products are already marketed through Amazon and Flipkart across India. But this venture of Amazon-US will be the first to sell Bengali tant in faraway America. Even other Tantuja products will also be sold.

"Amazon-United States will sell tant sari. This is a new initiative which will promote and sell Tantuja's product in the United States," said Swapan Debnath, Minister of State, Handloom and Textiles.

"Amazon and Flipkart have already been selling Tantuja products. But with this effort, the Amazon-United States will take Bengal's tant sari to global marketing platform with possibility of higher reach to overseas buyers," the minister added while talking to Millennium Post. Though tant sari would be the

main product to be uploaded by Tantuja, a variety of cotton skirts, scarves, stoles and other unstitched products and silk saris as well could also be displayed there on Amazon website, a state government source revealed.

However, Tantuja is working on special saris for special occasions like marriages, similar on lines of Baranasi saris. Weavers from Varanasi have been invited to the state to finish the project before this year's Durga Puja.

A senior officer at the state Secretariat said this adaptation of omni-channel marketing route to enhance Tantuja's reach is the ideation of the Chief Minister.

Tantuja will continue to take the omni-channel marketing route for reaching out to more customers, besides introducing new products.

"We are getting huge response from the customers in online shopping platforms which are a big encouragement for us. About this new venture with Amazon-United States, I can say that tant saris are something unique that Bengal can offer to the rest of the world. So, we are really excited about it," the minister added.