The National Handloom Expo being held at Parade ground here is eliciting very good public response. The organisers claimed that they have recorded a sale of `2.25 Crores tillSunday which is much more than the previous years.
A sale of `3.5 crore was recorded last year and this year we are expecting to cross that figure comfortably, said a confident Director Industries, Sudhir Chandra Nautiyal while interacting with media persons on Monday. The exhibition would end on January 13.
Nautiyal said that a total of 155 weavers and weaver societies are participating in the expo and out of them 45 craftsmen belong to Uttarakhand. Highlighting the importance of expo in giving a boost to the sale of handlooms, he said that a survey conducted by the Agriculture Finance Corporation revealed that the exhibitions contribute to about 70 percent of total sales of handloom in the country. Nautiyal said that the Tweed cloth made by the craftsmen of Chamoli has caught the imagination of the people and the department is planning to promote it further.
He added that for the handloom weavers it has become a challenge to continue their profession.
“Limited numbers of societies promote their own craftsmen and workers in order to sell their products in the market. Hence, this exhibition is a great platform to nurture their sales in order to benefit them with good prices.
This indirectly benefits the consumers in order to get good quality handmade products at reasonable prices which are comparatively lesser than the ordinary markets that consist of machine outputs. Many women have claimed that the kind of clothes they buy from branded shops are available at this exhibition at very reasonable prices without compromising with the quality of the product,’’ he said.
The National Handloom Expo is being conducted in other cities of the country like Bhubaneswar and Kanpur but Dehradun is getting best public response, the official claimed.
He further informed that one Ajeet Biswas has started making Sarees at Ranipur in Haridwar which is good news as there was earlier no handloom unit of Sarees in Uttarakhand.
The officials claimed that they are witnessing an increase in the sale of a number of varieties including regional crop grains, jackets, pankhi (shawl) and traditional caps The Expo In charge K C Chamoli was also present on the occasion.