Handicraft Rebate Scheme

What is the Handicraft Rebate Scheme in Gujarat?

Handicraft Rebate Scheme is a sales support scheme launched by the Commissioner of Cottage and Rural Industries, Government of Gujarat. The scheme pays a rebate on the retail sale price of handicrafts so that a cooperative can sell at a lower shelf price without the artisan absorbing the cut. The state makes up the difference.

The mechanism is worth understanding before the numbers. A handmade product competes on a shelf against a machine-made substitute that costs a fraction to produce. A rebate on sales lets the cooperative discount the handmade item to a price a shopper will actually pay, while the artisan still receives the full realisation. It is a demand-side subsidy, not a production grant, and that is why the claim is built from sales invoices rather than from raw material bills.

Handicraft Rebate Scheme is administered through the e-Kutir portal, the online window of the Commissionerate. The Commissionerate also uses an e-voucher system on e-Kutir for toolkit distribution and rebate disbursement, which keeps the money trail traceable from claim to credit.

The scale of the underlying activity is real. Gujarat's handloom and handicraft cooperative sector recorded sales worth over Rs 290 crore in 2024-25 across more than 246 handloom cooperative societies, and the state disbursed Rs 73.82 crore in sales rebates in that year according to state government figures reported in the press.

Key features

• Permanent rebate of 5 per cent on retail sales of handicrafts.
• 15 per cent permanent rebate for women-led cooperatives.
• Special festival rebate of an additional 10 per cent for 120 days, taking the total to 15 per cent for general cooperatives and 20 per cent for women-led groups.
• Enhanced support targeted at Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and BPL artisans.
• Prior rebate certification from the Commissionerate is a precondition.
• Delivered through the e-Kutir portal with an e-voucher trail.

Who is eligible for the handicraft rebate?

An applicant qualifies when all of these are true:

• The applicant is a registered cooperative society, an apex institution, or a women-led group.
• The applicant produces handicrafts. The rebate follows handicraft production, not general trading.
• The applicant has obtained prior rebate certification from the Commissionerate of Cottage and Rural Industries.
• The applicant can produce sales invoices with product details to support the claim.
• The applicant holds a bank account in the registered name of the society or institution for disbursement.

Who cannot apply or are not eligible

• An individual artisan trading on their own account is not eligible for this particular rebate. The scheme's unit of assistance is the cooperative society, the apex institution or the women-led group. Individual artisans in Gujarat are served through other Commissionerate schemes such as toolkit assistance and through fair and exhibition participation support.
• An unregistered group cannot apply, because registration proof is a mandatory document.
• A society that sells handicrafts it did not produce, a pure reseller: falls outside the scheme's purpose.
• A society that made the sales before obtaining rebate certification cannot claim on those sales retrospectively. This is the most costly mistake a new society makes.
• A general cooperative cannot claim the 15 per cent women-led rate without women-led certification.
• Sales made outside the notified 120-day festival window cannot attract the extra 10 per cent festival rebate, though the permanent rebate still applies.

What documents are required?

Invoice discipline decides how much a society actually receives. An invoice that records only a total amount, with no product description, makes it impossible for the scrutinising officer to separate handicraft sales from other sales, and the usual result is a reduced claim rather than a rejected one.

How to apply for the Handicraft Rebate Scheme on e-Kutir

1. Open the e-Kutir portal at e-kutir.gujarat.gov.in. In the right pane of the landing page, select "For New Individual Registration, click Here".
2. Complete the registration form, full name in English, Aadhaar number, gender, date of birth, mobile number, email and a password, plus the captcha code — then select Register.
3. Check the confirmation pop-up showing the name and mobile number. Select Confirm if correct, or Cancel, correct the entry and register again. The User ID and password arrive by SMS, and by email if an email address was given.
4. Log in with the User ID, password and captcha, and complete the User Profile with personal and organisational details at first login. Fields entered at registration cannot be changed later.
5. On the home page the portal lists the schemes relevant to you. Select the Handicraft Rebate Scheme to open its application form.
6. Fill each tab of the form and upload every mandatory document in the specified format and size, entering the document number wherever asked. Select "Save & Next" to move through the tabs.
7. Review everything, make corrections, then tick the checkbox accepting the terms and conditions, declaration and privacy policy.
8. Select "Save & Next" on the last tab. The portal generates an application number on screen. Record it, and use "Print Application" if you want a copy.

How do I correct or reprint an application?

1. Log back in to e-Kutir with the same User ID and password.
2. If the application has been returned for revision, a "Modify" button appears against it. Open it, edit the flagged fields, and resubmit.
3. Use "Print Application" at any stage to take a copy for the society's records and for the audit file, since a cooperative's rebate claim is an item its auditors will look at.

How do I check the application status?

1. Open the Application Status page on e-Kutir.
2. Enter the application number of the scheme and your date of birth.
3. Select "View Status" to see where the claim has reached.

For a claim that is not moving, contact the District Industries Centre (DIC) of your district. The DIC is the field arm the Commissionerate works through; or call the scheme helpdesk on 9909926280 / 9909926180.

How much can a society actually receive?

The arithmetic is straightforward once the category is settled.

• A general cooperative selling handicrafts receives 5 per cent of retail sales all year, and 15 per cent during the notified 120-day festival window.
• A women-led cooperative receives 15 per cent all year and 20 per cent during the festival window.

On Rs 10,00,000 of certified retail sales, a general cooperative therefore receives Rs 50,000 outside the festival window, while a women-led cooperative on the same sales during the festival window receives Rs 2,00,000. The difference explains why registering a genuinely women-led society, and getting the women-led certification on record, is the single highest-value administrative step available to an artisan group in this scheme.

Why do handicraft rebate claims get rejected or reduced?

• Sales made before rebate certification was obtained from the Commissionerate.
• Invoices without product details, so handicraft sales cannot be separated from other sales.
• Registration proof missing or lapsed for the cooperative society.
• Women-led rate claimed without women-led certification.
• SC, ST or BPL enhanced support claimed without artisan identity proofs.
• Bank account name not matching the registered name of the society.
• Festival rebate claimed on sales outside the notified 120-day window.
• Documents uploaded in the wrong format or size, or a document number left blank where the form demands it.

Where do I raise a grievance?

• Scheme helpdesk on 9909926280 / 9909926180, the numbers published against this scheme, for application and portal problems.
• District Industries Centre (DIC) of your district, which handles field scrutiny of cooperative claims.
• Commissioner of Cottage and Rural Industries, Gandhinagar, at cottage.gujarat.gov.in, is the scheme's owning authority.
• e-Kutir portal itself, where an officer's remark against a returned application explains what needs to be modified before resubmission.

Applying is free. The rebate is a statutory incentive administered through an e-voucher trail, so no intermediary is needed and no payment to an agent will change the outcome of a claim.