PM launches ‘India Handloom’ brand, calls for reinvention

Announcing August 7 as the National Handloom Day in Chennai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said handlooms could be made a fashion trend by bringing new designs and colour schemes, and constantly evolving and innovating. “People, especially women, wear handloom clothes on social occasions, like marriages, and major festivals. We need to popularize this among the youth. This will give the much needed boost to the handloom sector,” he said.

Giving an example of rise in khadi sales after his appeal to the nation last October to use at least one khadi item to support artisans, Modi said similar effort is required to for the benefit of artisans working in the handloom sector. “Can we not enhance use of handlooms in our daily lives? We have many options, such as clothes, curtain, bed sheets, and doormats, and just to name a few. This will not only support handlooms but also our weavers,” he said.

India is home to several world famous handloom products like Kancheevaram saris of Tamil Nadu and Pochampalli of Andhra Pradesh. “The handloom sector has inherent strengths. I am told that handloom forms 15 percent of our total cloth consumption, if we raise this to just 20 percent from 15 percent, it will give a huge boost to handlooms. Handloom turnover will increase by 33 percent,” Modi said.

Mod also conferred the Sant Kabir awards and national awards to distinguished handloom workers for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 and launched the ‘India Handloom’ brand. Launching the brand Modi said, “A film on handlooms, handicrafts and khadi would be widely welcomed by countrymen and would go places.” He also asked the weavers to avail of social security schemes intended to benefit unorganised sector, including PM Jeeva Jyoti Bima Yogana for life insurance, PM Suraksha Bima Yogana for accident insurance cover and Atal pension scheme, besides the Mudra Bank for micro, small and medium industries, which was created with a corpus of Rs 20,000 crores.