With the depletion of natural resources and growing urbanisation, the embroidering communities were forced to find alternative ways of income in times of drought. Having tasted commerce through visitors, some of the enterprising men from these villages started trading in embroideries, who turned into powerful middlemen.These men would get orders from outside markets and commission work to craftswomen, ultimately reducing them to lowly-paid piece rate workers.

The government of Gujarat set up a corporation for the development of handicrafts in the state to procure crafts from the region and sell them throughoutlets in big cities of India under the name of Gurjari.