The Ministry of Textiles has constituted an eight-member committee to come out with suggestions to double production and quadruple exports in three years.
According to an order dated August 19, the committee, headed by Sunil Sethi, chairman of Fashion Design Council of India, will include members from NIFT, industry, and experts. One member, K.N. Prabhu of Paradigm International, is from Karur. There are two members from New Delhi, two from Pune, one from Surat and one from New Delhi.
The committee will submit a preliminary report in a month and the final report in 45 days. It will suggest strategies to improve the quality of handloom products, facilitating collaboration between weavers and designers, improving the domestic market for handloom products and input supplies.
K. Selvaraju, secretary general of Southern India Mills’ Association, said the committee should have representatives from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka too.
The governments of these States had been promoting handlooms and the number of working handlooms was more in the south. Value addition was high in silk sector, which was active mainly in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. So there should be product-wise representation in the committee.
The only representative from the south now was from Karur, Tamil Nadu, and represented the home textiles segment, he said. There should be more members in the committee from the southern States, he added.