Odisha Student’s Innovation ‘Dharohar’ Aims To Curb Handloom Saree Fraud, Ensure Fair Pay For Weavers
Designed as per real-life experiences, the platform ensures transparency in handloom trade, empowers artisans, protects consumers and showcases how student-led innovation addresses systemic market failures.
Published : January 22, 2026 at 12:10 PM IST
By Narayan Sahoo
Cuttack: Buying expensive handloom sarees, whether online or from retail stores, at times lands us in trouble - either because it turns out to be a gamble or because of quality concerns. Many end up paying premium prices for low-quality or counterfeit products and there is little scope for returns or accountability. At the same time, traditional weavers who painstakingly create handloom sarees, one takes about months, frequently receive unfair remuneration due to the involvement of middlemen at various stages.
Seeking to address both these challenges, Debiprasad Mishra, a third-year student of the Information Science and Technology (IST) Department at Ravenshaw University, has come up with a digital platform aimed at creating transparency and direct access between weavers and buyers. For this innovation, he was given a cash incentive and award of Rs 5 lakh from none other than the Odisha government.
Named ‘Dharohar’, the website enables weavers to directly list and sell their sarees to customers, eliminating any kind of interference. Each product on the platform is embedded with a QR-code-based verification system, allowing buyers to test authenticity, check on the pricing and the saree's origin. This mechanism helps customers identify counterfeit products and ensures that when customers pay a fair price, it goes straight to the artisans.
The platform has been designed especially for cottage industries, handloom and handicraft sectors, keeping in mind the livelihood challenges of nearly 2.3 lakh weavers in Odisha. By facilitating direct digital access, Dharohar seeks to reduce exploitation on both ends of the supply chain.
The idea for the project seeded in Devi’s mind from a personal experience. "I purchased a saree for my mother and that turned out to be of inferior quality despite priced expensively. Around the same time, I learned from a college friend, who happened to be from a weaver's family, how harsh the situation was for weavers in the handloom work, where intense labour never yielded good returns. I felt uneasy and decided to come up with some solution which can make the entire weaving-selling processs systematic," explains Debiprasad.
He started with developing a website in August last year and completed it within five months though his academic commitments were also demanding a lot of time. Once it was ready, the project was reviewed by the Higher Education Department, which recognised its potential social impact and awarded him financial support under a student innovation initiative.
Debiprasad expressed gratitude for the government support and said he would utilise the funds to further strengthen the platform. "Developing such a large-scale digital marketplace independently is financially impossible for individual weavers as it would need at least Rs 50 lakh investment for expansion and long-term sustainability. But institutional backing can make the initiative beneficial both for artisans and consumers. This would also boost the state’s traditional industries," asserted the young innovator.
Manish Ray, Debiprasad's mentor and faculty member of the IST Department, appreciated his work, calling it an example of how student innovation can address real-world problems. "The university takes pride in the initiative and we hope it inspires other students to use technology for social good," Manish added.
At a time when large corporations existing since ages had not been able to come up with a solution to the perpetual problem, a student like Debiprasad proved that solutions can be created only with a strong will to address systemic failures. "Innovations can also emerge from classrooms," he smiles as he gets busy in the work.
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