Yarns of woe: Uncertain future for handloom weavers

​Dharmavaram (Anantapur): The handloom weavers in the district in particular and the weavers in general in the State are a disappointed lot as wide gap persists from the promises made by the government and their actual implementation.

Many of the handloom weavers are of the opinion that the governments of the past and the present had only reacted to panicky situations caused by suicides of debt-ridden weavers and had never applied their mind on what actually is ailing the handloom weaver sector.

There are some who deliberately want the handloom industry to die so that powerloom industry can capture the market, for two reasons, one, none in the handloom sector want their children to continue the age-old profession and the other reasons being mechanisation and the inability of age-old master weavers and common weavers to compete with powerloom weavers.

The major problems dogging the weavers community is the challenge posed by the powerloom sector and the exploitation of common weavers by the master weavers. The master weavers supply raw material for common weavers and pay a pittance to the sarees made by handloom weavers.

On an average, a handloom weaver weaves one saree a week and at the most, five sarees a month, whereas a powerloom weaver produces three sarees a day. Sreenivasa Rao, a weaver from Dharmavaram, said while the minimum cost of a handloom saree is Rs 5,000 and goes up to even Rs 1 lakh or so while a powerloom saree is sold at Rs 1,200.

He said that a section of master weavers are duping the customers by selling powerloom sarees at handloom prices, thus adversely affecting the handloom market. The Handloom Weavers Act prohibits operation of powerlooms in Dharmavaram and within 50 km radius of the weavers’ town.

Obuleshu, another weaver said 50 suicides of debt-ridden weavers had sounded the alarm bells and has served as a warning for future generations against continuing the profession. He scoffed at Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s announcement of developing Dharmavaram into a smart town when hundreds of weavers’ families are languishing in poverty.

“We are only asking the government to better our lives by extending incentives for the community,” he added. He said the much promised loan waiver has remained an announcement. Instead of making our town a smart one, they should make our lives smart. So far, about 25,000 weavers had migrated to other towns, he added.

The government must do something before our weavers colonies are reduced to ghost colonies, adds another. Hindupur MP Nimmala Kistappa demanded that the Chief Minister come to the rescue of weavers’ community and save their profession from extinction by training the younger generation of the weavers’ families in modern techniques of weaving.

He urged the Chief Minister to provide 100 units of free power to weavers, creation of a revolving fund and provision of government guarantees to weavers’ bank loans. He urged the government to set up a weavers’ enforcement office in Dharmavaram, payment of maternity allowance of Rs 2,000 every month to pregnant women weavers for six months and compensation to the families of the weavers who committed suicide and died of heart ailments.

The life of weavers, within as well as outside cooperative societies were pathetic due to exploitation by master weavers and middlemen, according to Weavers United Front chairman K A N Murthy. Lack of inputs like finance, raw materials and lack of marketing facilities were forcing the common weavers to give themselves up to master weavers, middlemen and wholesalers who unscrupulously harass them, he added.

He said that there are 1.4 lakh handlooms in the district and two lakh weavers are engaged in the work. He demanded that the government grant Rs 1,000 crore in the budget for weavers. There are 254 weavers’ cooperative societies with 26,725 members and of them, 170 societies are functioning well, he added.