Ministry of Textiles to focus only on premium handloom production

The Ministry of Textiles is looking at moving away from mass production of handloom fabric and concentrating on the premium segment. For this, it will be building on the India Handloom Brand (IHB) so as to bring relief to the lakhs of underpaid weavers.

This move has already started bringing in dividends. It has not only improved the earnings of the weavers but sales of IHB products have gone up. There has been a perception change as it is now being associated with better quality, competitive pricing and easy availability. This is noticeable in the sales too. Since the time IHB was launched in December 2015 to March this year, it has made Rs 15 crore. It is being hoped that the figure would jump to Rs 100 crore by the end of the year.

Alok Kumar, Development Commissioner, Handlooms, believes that it’s a sort of revival for the fabric which had lost consumers because of sheer neglect that led to its quality slipping and prices being uncompetitive compared to powerloom textiles.

The government will train weavers to upgrade their skills for high-end handloom fabrics like Patola, Champa, Chanderi, Ashawali Silk, Salem Silk, Uppada Jamdani, Kinnori Shawl, Kullu Shawl, Banarasi and so on. In the last 10 years, the government has taught new weaving skills with contemporary designs and reliable dyes to 80-90,000 weavers. This has helped to push up their earnings from Rs 150 per day to Rs 800-900 per day. The ministry will train 35,000 weavers this year.

As per the last Census in 2010, there are 43 lakh weavers in the country. Of this, around 65 per cent were in the Northeast who produced handloom fabric for household consumption. Only 20 lakh weavers produced fabric for commercial consumption.