Top fashion designers have been roped in by the Orissa Government to revive the state’s handloom sector which is facing a crisis.

Fashion designers like Sabyasachi Mukjerjee and Rajesh Pratap Singh have been invited by the State Government to work on a project with the Orissa State Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society and Sambalpuri Bastralaya to improve the design of sarees and other materials to popularise them.

Once in great demand, Orissa handloom has fallen on bad days due to a variety of reasons like rising cost of inputs and materials, prevalence of age-old techniques, lack of proper marketing network and little scope for skill development.

The State Government woke up to the challenge after a traditional weaver Uttar Meher and his family members of Bargarh district in Western Orissa committed suicide unable to cope with grinding poverty recently.

“Weavers of Orissa are highly talented and need certain technical and marketing guidance in order to attract customers in international market,” the secretary, textiles and handlooms, Ms Arti Ahuja, said.

She said the State Government has decided to take the help of experts after drafting a comprehensive handloom policy last month.

The leading fashion designers would work on a project with the state-run Boyanika (Orissa State Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society) and Sambalpuri Bastralaya to help improve the designs and create a market for Orissa handlooms and textiles, Ms Ahuja said.

Sabyasachi recently paid a visit to Bhubaneswar to assess the handloom scenario in the state.

“An increasing number of people these days are getting attracted towards cultural and traditional stuff like Kotpad or Sambalpuri textiles. They will certainly be revived,” the leading fashion designer said.

Besides Sabyasachi, designers like Abraham and Thakur, Anjali Kalia and Orissa-born Bibhu Mohapatra, now based in USA, would work on the State Government-sponsored 18-month project.

To begin with, steps have been taken to set up a handloom park in Bargarh district, which has the biggest handloom cluster in the state, to teach weaving to the people of non-weavers community.

The proposed Sambalpuri Ikat handloom park would be perhaps the second handloom park in the country after the establishment of the first one at Kochampalli near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, sources said.

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