The Hindu Business Line : TN identifies 21 clusters for handloom development

Cluster Plans
Four clusters identified for development under the Integrated Handloom Cluster Development Scheme
GoI to soon announce a special package for handlooms
TN amounts to nearly a third of total handloom exports
Weavers not connected to any co-operative society did better business

Chennai , June 18

Tamil Nadu has identified 21 handloom clusters for development under two separate schemes of the Union Government. The State Government has identified four clusters for development under the Integrated Handloom Cluster Development Scheme, which gives a grant of Rs 2 crore per cluster for upgrading infrastructure. The four are: Kanchipuram, Dindigul, Salem and Karur.

Twenty-five clusters have been identified all over the country for attention under the scheme, according to Mr Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Commerce.

Clusters Development

TN has also identified 17 clusters for attention under another scheme of the Union Government, which is to be formally announced soon. The Government has allocated Rs 50 crore for the scheme, which envisages development of 100 clusters across the country.

The seventeen are: the dhoti-making cluster of Nagarkoil, the saree clusters of Ettayapuram, Rajapalayam, Srivilliputtur, Aruppukottai, Paramakudi, Madurai, Andipatti, Vorayur, Jayamkondan, Venkatagiri, Tirubhuvanam and Sirumugai, the silk saree clusters of Rasipuram and the bedsheet and furnishings clusters of Salem, Karur and Erode.

Special Package

In all, out of the 125 clusters identified in the entire country, Tamil Nadu accounts for 21, noted Mr Jairam Ramesh, at a press conference here on Saturday.

He said that the Union Government would soon announce a special package for handlooms, which involved financial support for marketing, technology upgradation, making available raw material and cluster-based infrastructure development.

The Minister said that exports of handloom products out of Tamil Nadu amounted to Rs 800 crore in 2005-06, nearly a third of Rs 2,500 crore of total handloom exports from the country.

He said that the State-run weavers co-operative, Co-optex, was among the few better run handloom co-operative societies in the country.

Co-optex achieved a turnover of Rs 400 crore last year and made profits. But the Minister also pointed out that Rs 300 crore of the turnover came from purchase of sarees and dhotis by the State Government for free distribution among the poor.

He said that in Tamil Nadu, 45 per cent of the weavers were involved in a weavers co-operative society, against the national average of 15 per cent. Answering a question, he said that those who were not connected to any weavers co-operative society did better business.

Self-Help Groups

Mr Ramesh observed that the experience with co-operative society model was not so good in the country, but for very poor weavers, there was no option but to join a co-operative.

He said that his own experiment in Chirala district in Andhra Pradesh, where he gave Rs 1 crore of his MP's constituency development fund for upgradation of looms, showed that involving womens' self help groups was a better model.

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