Chennai: “To weave a silk saree, a handloom weaver spends 30 hours in the loom, putting in enormous physical labour and ensures quality as well,” said O S Manian, Tamilnadu Handlooms and Textiles Minister in the Assembly yesterday.
Raising concern about changing trends in clothing, the minister said attractive advertisements and changing preferences of men and women are posing challenges to handloom sector. He cited technology interventions such as cloth tech and geographical tech as challenges before the handloom sector. However, he assured that the government would tackle the problems and win.
Churidhars and pants instead of traditional sarees and dhotis are being preferred by people now a days. He raised demands for grants to his department and stressed on several government schemes to aid weavers in the State: Schemes such as Rs 40 crore support plan, a rebate subsidy and free electricity.
He further noted that continuous employment to 14,000 handloom and 54,000 powerloom weavers was ensured by the Cost Free Dhoti and Saree Scheme. Also fulfilling the clothing needs of approximately three crore people in both rural and urban regions, he added.
The minister further announced that Rs 490.20 crore has been allocated for free dhoti and saree distribution for next year’s Pongal. For free supply of school uniforms, the government has allotted Rs 279 crore worth cloth material, which was produced by weaver cooperative societies, and this year, Rs 327.44 crore has been allocated for the uniform distribution scheme.
In order to attract customers, LED advertisement panels would be installed at State-run Cooptex apart from modernising five of its show rooms.
He also doubled the cash reward for new designs for weavers to Rs 10,000, Rs 6,000 and Rs 4,000 (from Rs 5,000, Rs.3,000, Rs 2,000). On the Weaver Mudra Scheme, he said “it is placed on record that Tamil Nadu is continuously holding the number one position in the country in the last three years (2016-17 to 2018-19) in implementation of the scheme.” In 2018-19, against the target of 15,000, 22,650 loan applications were cleared and Rs 112.37 crore disbursed, he said.