The Hindu Business Line : Major initiative to revamp handloom sector in the offing

They not only have to compete with power looms and mills, which produce textiles far cheaper, but bulk of them depend upon the master weavers for everything, from supply of yarn to marketing.

Result, a great many of the weavers live in extreme poverty.

Suicides by weavers have been frequently reported.

However, this could change, if a major initiative of the Government delivers the goods.

Addressing a press conference here, the Union Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said that one of the four elements of the scheme is a Rs 100-crore effort for launching `handloom mark'.

Each product that comes out of handlooms will be given a `handloom mark'. The `label' will pronounce the product as one made on handlooms and will perhaps fetch a higher price. The Rs 100 crore is to be spent on creating the infrastructure for putting the handloom mark on the products and to publicise the scheme.

Funds are to be made available under a special `technology upgradation fund' for upgrading the `pit looms' into the more productive `jacquard looms'. Allocation is Rs 15 crore for five years. Too little? No, says Mr Ramesh. Each loom costs only Rs 10,000 and are all made within India.

He noted that he had himself given Rs 1 crore out of his Member of Parliament's constituency development fund to upgrade 10,000 looms in the (suicide-prone) Chirala district in Andhra Pradesh.

Yarn-vending Depots

The third element of the scheme is to make yarn available to weavers, by increasing the number of yarn-vending depots of the National Handloom Development Corporation from 65 to 230 in one year, at a cost of Rs 10 crore.

Finally, 100 new clusters of handlooms are to be supported with funds for infrastructure development.

Allocation for this is Rs 50 crore.

Mr Ramesh pointed out that the scheme covered infrastructure, raw material, productivity improvement and marketing.

In addition, Nabard is developing "a financial package to clean-up weaver co-operatives" through infusion of capital.

Details will come out in two months.

But Mr Ramesh is no fan of the co-operative model, which he says, has failed.

"We have to think of alternatives to weaver co-operatives," he said, observing that involving women's self-help groups improved the situation a lot in Chirala.

More Stories on : Handloom | Rural Development | Textiles

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