All India Radio
PROMOTING INDIAN HANDLOOMS
Click here and search for 7th August 2015 Spotlight/News Analysis for audio
Importance of Handloom industry
- Handloom industry is as old as our civilization and it is a living tradition
- Handloom industry is a labour intensive and skilled industry. More than 43 lakh workers are engaged in Handloom and its allied activities
- Handloom sector contributes 15% to the total cloth production in the country
- Strength of the sector lies in
- Uniqueness
- Flexibility of production
- Openness to innovation
- Adaptability to suppliers’ requirements
- Wealth of the tradition
- Their usage is also eco friendly, which is useful for reducing GHG emissions and achieving India’s INDC targets
- 1 metre of Khadi uses only 3 litres of water whereas 1 metre of mill cloth uses 55 litres of water
- Khadi is slightly more traditional than handloom. In khadi, cloth is made by hand spinning and hand weaving; In Handloom, mill spun yarn can also be used
Problems
- The weavers and spinners are not getting minimum wages
- They do not have social security
- Skilled workers (Handloom sector) are earning less than the unskilled workers. Hence they move to unskilled work in MGNREGA, rickshaw pulling etc.
- Various schemes of the government are not being implemented properly
- The handloom workers are not getting raw materials like threads, dyes etc. at affordable rates
- When big orders come for exports, the traders get benefited rather than the artisans
- Sometimes duplicate materials are being sold in the name of handlooms. The genuine skilled weavers are losing market on account of this
Initiatives
- “India Handloom” brand will be given to entrepreneurs who provide good quality yarn, purity of design and abide by zero defects
- Certain categories of clothes are reserved for handloom sector only
- Incentives to cluster approach, technological up gradation, marketing promotion, revival of potentially viable societies through loan weavers, assistance and subsidised yarn, credit etc.
- National Handloom Day – Aug 7. It was on August 7, 1905, the “Swadeshi Movemen”t was launched
What yet needs to be done?
- Availability of handloom products online (E-commerce)
- Popularizing handlooms (Branding & Marketing)
- Direct wages to the bank accounts of weavers for govt schemes
- Internal reorganization of the structure of the sector so that maximum benefits go to weavers and spinners instead of traders
