Textile minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar launched the Enterprise Resource Planning system for the commercial activities of the National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC) to boost domestic handloom industry in Varanasi on Sunday.

NHDC has thus become the first PSU under the Textiles Ministry to have the ERP system, the system that will help improve productivity, increase efficiencies, decrease costs and streamline supply of raw material processes in NHDC.

All processes - such as indenting, purchase order generation and invoice generation - will be performed through the ERP system itself. Procurement, inventory management and demand forecasting will also improve, resulting in high quality customer service.

Mills will also be integrated in the system, in order to ensure that indenting and order confirmation are a part of the online ERP system. Weavers can access the status of the despatch of the material from the mills such as the name of the transporter, freight, LR No etc, the release said.

ERP will be available in Hindi and local languages for the benefit of weavers. Calculation of freight and depot subsidy will be done by the system, bringing in transparency and faster claim submission.

The system will provide real-time information on NHDC activities occurring in all the parts of the country. This system will significantly benefit the weavers, who are the primary beneficiaries of the government's yarn supply scheme. It will also result in higher transparency and accountability, making the corporation's activities visible for all stakeholders.