SIDDIPET, POCHAMPALLY & KOYALAGUDDEM, India, Jan 08 (IPS) – The southern Indian state of Telangana has all the time been dwelling to beautiful cotton and silk weaves. However in recent times, lack of market entry, costly inputs, and authorities apathy have taken their toll on the weaving neighborhood. Consequently, the youthful technology is refraining from pursuing this conventional occupation and choosing extra profitable pursuits.
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 all the time been identified for its beautiful cotton saris and stoles. However as we speak, 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 objects within the export market. But none of his youngsters—a son and two daughters—need to inherit his craft.
One other weaver, generally known as Ilaiyah, has been weaving for the previous 60 years, since he turned 15. But his youngsters 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 serious about studying to weave.
Grasp weaver Mallikarjun Siddi, who additionally owns a advertising outlet in Siddipet, adopted his father, famend weaver Buchaiah Siddi, into the occupation. However his youngsters have opted out of this conventional occupation.
Nevertheless, Siddi defends the kids.
“Why would children need to undertake a occupation 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 arduous. Electrical energy is Rs 10 (USD 0.12) a unit. If backed, the associated fee 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 isn’t attainable. Therefore, even as we speak, you see solely handlooms right here,” explains Siddi.
Advertising and marketing the product can also be robust. The federal government buys the product at greater charges however does so lackadaisically. “Their representatives come solely annually, and though the cost is greater, it isn’t rapid. Non-public events come often, 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 mean 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 p.c 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 except the federal government helps us. A serious downside is the 5 p.c Items and Providers 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 means of its shops, providing the merchandise to prospects at discounted costs, particularly through 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 advised a way 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 marriage ceremony. Together with the cash, the federal government may simply present a sari price Rs 10,000 (USD 118.23) for the bride. It will assist us weavers too, whereas serving to the mother and father with the bridal trousseau,” Anjanelu says.
Apart from, most weavers are usually not proud of the standard of the backed yarn supplied by the federal government by means of the Nationwide Handloom Growth Company.
Muralikrishnan, a weaver from Koyalaguddem, a village famend for its cotton ikat, laments, “The yarn supplied 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 not like 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 isn’t as if nothing was finished for weavers by the Telangana authorities. Nevertheless, if weavers haven’t skilled long-term advantages, may this be attributed to the end 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 houses.
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 revenue.
However the issues confronted, there are a number 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 means of the web, from his dusty little village.
“It’s the solely means out,” he tells me.
Certainly, the World Huge 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 technology to maintain the weaving custom alive in Telangana and forestall it from dying out.
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