Erratic Sales and Government Apathy Hurt Telangana Weavers — Global Issues

by Rina Mukherji (siddipet, pochampally & koyalaguddem, india)Wednesday, January 08, 2025Inter Press Service

That is evident when one visits the weaving cities of the state. Take Siddipet, which is about 100 km from the metropolitan metropolis of Hyderabad. Siddipet has at all times been identified for its beautiful cotton saris and stoles. However in the present day, solely a few hundred wizened people, unfold over seven handloom cooperatives, nonetheless weave.

Srivikailasam is a famend middle-aged weaver who was honoured by the Chief Minister with the Konda Laxman Bapuji Award. His saris, dupattas and stoles are prized gadgets within the export market. But none of his kids—a son and two daughters—wish to inherit his craft.

One other weaver, often called Ilaiyah, has been weaving for the previous 60 years, since he turned 15. But his kids have turned their backs to weaving.

Yadagiri has additionally been weaving for the previous 60 years, like his fellow weavers. However neither his son nor daughter are occupied with studying to weave.

Grasp weaver Mallikarjun Siddi, who additionally owns a advertising outlet in Siddipet, adopted his father, famend weaver Buchaiah Siddi, into the career. However his kids have opted out of this conventional occupation.

Nevertheless, Siddi defends the kids.

“Why would children wish to undertake a career that pays so little? A weaver earns Rs 1000 (USD 11.82) a day right here, and it takes three full days to weave a sari. A job within the IT hub of HiTech Metropolis in Hyderabad fetches much more.”

Worse, the Telangana authorities doesn’t subsidize electrical energy; this has resulted within the Siddipet weavers persevering with to make use of handlooms as a substitute of switching to powerlooms, making their work much more tedious and onerous. Electrical energy is Rs 10 (USD 0.12) a unit. If backed, the price comes all the way down to Rs 1 (US$ 0.012) per unit. Energy loom equipment is dear, starting from Rs 1.5 lakh to six lakh (USD 1773.5 to USD 7101). With electrical energy subsidy, a weaver can bear the burden. In any other case, it’s not potential. Therefore, even in the present day, you see solely handlooms right here,” explains Siddi.

Advertising and marketing the product can also be robust. The federal government buys the product at increased charges however does so lackadaisically. “Their representatives come solely annually, and though the fee is increased, it’s not rapid. Non-public events come usually, and sometimes, pay instantly,” say weavers.

The story is hardly any completely different in Pochampally, world-renowned for its ikat silk weaves. Ikat right here could be both single ikat or double ikat, with the second being much more costly. The yarn needs to be initially soaked after which dyed earlier than weaving. Since ikat weaves require each thread of the yarn to be dyed individually, an influence loom can by no means be used. Thus, ikat weaves, whether or not cotton or silk, should be woven on a handloom, as grasp weaver Laxman Tadaka factors out. The silk yarn comes from Bengaluru and is priced at Rs 4500 (USD 53.20) per kilogram. A weaver wants a median of 6 kg of yarn to weave seven saris a month. To bear the price of inputs and the trouble, a weaver should make sufficient gross sales. “The 15 % subsidy prolonged by the federal government can hardly suffice,” Tadaka factors out.

Rudra Anjanelu, supervisor of the Pochampally Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society, says they’re depending on subsidies.

“Our silk saris are costly. However we can’t afford to provide reductions until the federal government helps us. A significant downside is the 5 % Items and Companies Tax (GST) that has now been imposed by the central authorities. It makes saris and different silk merchandise much more costly.”

Prior to now, the state authorities used to render advertising help by its shops, providing the merchandise to prospects at discounted costs, particularly throughout the festive season, whereas subsidizing weavers. This isn’t forthcoming anymore, making it robust for weavers.

Most weavers must depend on the Telangana State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Restricted (TSCO), their apex cooperative, to promote their product.

“We had prompt a technique to jack up our gross sales. The Telangana authorities has a Kalyanalakshmi scheme, whereby mother and father of ladies are given Rs 1 lakh (USD 1182.32) for his or her daughter’s wedding ceremony. Together with the cash, the federal government might simply present a sari price Rs 10,000 (USD 118.23) for the bride. This may assist us weavers too, whereas serving to the mother and father with the bridal trousseau,” Anjanelu says.

Moreover, most weavers are usually not proud of the standard of the backed yarn offered by the federal government by the Nationwide Handloom Growth Company.

Muralikrishnan, a weaver from Koyalaguddem, a village famend for its cotton ikat, laments, “The yarn offered by the federal government is of inferior high quality and this, in flip, can have an effect on the standard of our finish product. It’s in contrast to what we get from non-public merchants.”

Furthermore, as Anjanelu factors out, “Yarn needs to be paid for. When gross sales are down, how can weavers purchase any yarn?”

A giant problem for handloom weavers stays the flooding of markets by printed duplicates, which promote at a fraction of the worth of handloom cloth.

On hindsight, although, it’s not as if nothing was carried out for weavers by the Telangana authorities. Nevertheless, if weavers haven’t skilled long-term advantages, might this be attributed to the result of the poll?

The earlier Chandrashekhar Reddy (state) authorities, as an illustration, launched a 36-month savings-cum-insurance scheme for weavers termed the Thrift Scheme, whereby the federal government contributed an quantity matching the funding made by a person.

In Pochampally, land was additionally sanctioned for a handloom institute, and a handloom park was arrange on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, with a brand new Chief Minister getting elected, the plans got here to naught. The Handloom Park too suffered from unhealthy planning. Weavers who had arrange store on the park now must market their merchandise from their properties.

It’s ironical that the weavers of Pochampally, Koyalaguddem and Siddipet discover it robust to promote their beautiful weaves, regardless of being situated within the neighborhood of metropolitan Hyderabad, which boasts of an upwardly cell inhabitants with excessive disposable earnings.

However the issues confronted, there are a couple of who’ve discovered an answer. Dudyala Shankar and Muralikrishnan of Koyalaguddem have diversified their vary of merchandise to incorporate ikat cloth and bedsheets, alongside conventional saris, dupattas, and stoles. Muralikrishnan has been accessing markets throughout India by the web, from his dusty little village.

“It’s the solely approach out,” he tells me.

Certainly, the World Large Internet can actually fill in the place people can’t. Product diversification and market entry translating into gross sales might in the end wean again the youthful era to maintain the weaving custom alive in Telangana and stop it from dying out.

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