India is the ninth largest economy, poised to become the third largest by 2050. However, it faces issues of sub-contracting and related to labor. In order to address these issues, AEPC has initiated ‘DISHA’ which trains factories in safeguarding the interest of the workers and ensure compliance. Elaborating on Disha, Vijay Mathur, Additional Secretary General , AEPC says, “The program creates awareness from managers to shop floor about the laws of the land and the penalties. We prepare a guidance document which consists of all the relevant acts. It’s about 60 pages. We empower people. Disha is a facilitator. You own the program, it’s not enforced. It’s based on partnership, so you don’t need an auditor. Every process is standardised and workers also learn how to extinguish a fire.”
At the institutional level there are compliance clinics. Here the officers explain the law 
and offer solutions. “We have offices all over India, which offer free consultation. We have a team of 100 people doing this work. The Disha facilitator is the core person who gives the information. Additionally, there is a Disha support team, a steering committee, a product advisory board, a project implementation committee. The product advisory board comprises of buyers from US and Europe. NGOs come and evaluate our program whereas brands come and see our program since they are answerable to their consumers,” adds Mathur.
Mathur explains, “We have many apparel manufacturing factories, about 9, 000 plus. The total area of retail space is two billion sq ft. direct and indirect employment in textile is 45 million people. Now we want to assess around 100,000 people who know how to sew, how to cut and how to make a garment. We have 175 schools where we teach stitching, cutting, quality control. We also assess the gap between required technology and existing technology,” reveals Mathur.
In India, transaction and interest costs are high. Europe has an advantage in buying from Bangladesh because they are 10 per cent cheaper. “We are trying to negotiate FDI with Europe. Once that is done, the advantage will come to India too. India can become the next alternative country for apparel because of the more compliance-oriented factories, timely delivery, adds A Sakthivel Chairman, AEPC.
Home workers, contract labour, migrant workers, etc, are the target groups that work in this sub-contracted unit, they suffer due to inadequate law and being in unorganized sector, this endemic issue in the industry carries a huge reputational risk. DISHA is an effort to focus on the ways by which this issue can be managed. Improving on the transparency levels within the supply chains and working in collaboration with stakeholders are some of the focus of the program. The DISHA Guidance documents and toolkits give further details on the acts and managements systems to be put in place for subcontracting. The emphasis is on having a policy, having a monitoring system and having people responsible in the factories to ensure the two.
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