As the country celebrates the National Handloom Day, a group of weavers demanded that the Union and State governments adopt more weaver-friendly policies as the sector was the second largest employment-provider in rural areas, after agriculture.
Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of inauguration of a 10-day exhibition at the Ambedkar Bhavan here, the weavers said the authorities should step up subsidies on all inputs, including dyes, and provide additional discounts to the customers so that their products were more affordable.
The weavers said the assistance under the ‘Nethanna Nestham’ scheme should be increased to ₹50,000 per weaver and those engaged in allied activities like weft and warp knitting and dyeing should also be covered under the scheme.
Thanks to the “unimaginative” EXIM(Export Import policy), import of silk from foreign countries, such as China and Taiwan, had become costlier now. This has resulted in scarcity of the raw material in the domestic market. “A sari costing ₹3,500 hitherto has shot up to ₹5,500,” explained All-India Handloom Rights Forum (AIHRF) president Bandaru Jwala Narasimham.
The Centre should make available soft loan of up to ₹5 lakh to the weavers under the Mudra scheme, he said demanding scrapping of the Goods and Services Tax(GST) on all inputs as also their finished products.
The weavers were upset that only one cent of land and 1.5 cent in rural areas had been earmarked for housing by the State government. Each weaver should be provided at least 3 cents for the purpose as the loom alone would require 1.50 cents of land.
The number of weavers benefited under the scheme last year was over 82,000 in the State last year. However, the number might come down to a little less than 70,000 this year as the government has put a ceiling on power consumed to 300 units, they complained. Though an order had been promulgated by the State government to provide 100 units of power free of cost, the same had not been implemented at the grassroots level, they said.
Meanwhile, Prakasam District Collector Pravin Kumar, who inaugurated the exhibition organised by the APCO on Saturday, said both the Union and State governments were committed to bettering the lives of weavers, adding that under the government’s ‘Nethanna Nestham’ scheme, a financial assistance of ₹18.03 crore had been provided to 7,500 weavers in the district so far.