Balaramapuram: It is customary to buy or gift new handloom clothes to mark Kerala’s biggest festival Onam. Oddly, even as the festival is approaching, the weavers of traditional dresses are struggling: they have neither received wages nor yarn from the authorities for the last five months.
Making things worse, the state government organised elaborate programmes on Monday as part of the Handloom Day celebrations spending crores of rupees, but no project was announced to support the weavers.
Govt scheme in limbo
The weavers’ troubles started in 2017 when the government made supply of free handloom cloth mandatory for school uniforms in classes 1 to 7. Even though the government had then announced that students in classes 8 to 10 also would have to wear handloom uniforms later, the decision was not implemented.
Under this scheme, school uniform cloth was to be weaved by workers under Hantex, Hanveev and private firms with thread supplied from the Yarn Bank. Meanwhile, the wages were to be credited by the government directly to the accounts of the weavers.
Subsequently, the Education Department has been providing funds for meeting the expenses on the yarn and wages with the cooperation of the Industries Department.
However, with the government failing to pay the cotton mills, they have now stopped supply of the yarn. Even earlier, the mills used to deliver yarn for only 10-15 days’ weaving.
“The weavers will benefit if handloom cloth is made mandatory for students in classes 1 to 10 in government and aided schools,” said Peringamala Vijayan, general secretary of Handloom Societies Association.
“The handloom sector and employees are in deep trouble. The weavers haven’t been paid for the last five months for supplying school uniforms. Cooperative handlooms societies are also facing a crisis as the government has not paid them. However, the government has celebrated Handloom Day spending big money,” said G Subodhan, state president of the Kerala Handloom Workers’ Congress.
Other problems
Another issue faced by weavers is modification of their machines carried out spending thousands of rupees to weave uniform cloth. Even when wages and yarn for uniforms are unavailable, the weavers cannot revert to weaving traditional cloth as the machines would have to be modified yet again spending more money.
The weavers are plagued by yet another problem: as per a rule, each worker can weave only 150 metre of cloth a day.
Incidentally, weavers engaged in creating handloom cloth other than school uniforms are also underpaid and receive wages which are insufficient to meet daily needs even after working more than 10 hours a day.
Moreover, there has been a steep rise in prices of all raw materials and other items related to the handloom industry, which has made traditional handloom clothes expensive. This has resulted in fall in demand for these products.
All these factors have led to a severe crisis in the handloom sector and youths belonging to families of weavers are now abandoning the profession. Meanwhile, the majority of weavers being women, many of them are seeking work in other sectors such as employment guarantee schemes.
At the same time, there are allegations that the government was squeezing the handloom sector to covertly aid the power loom companies in other states.
Minister promises action plan
Addressing a function organised in Kochi on Handloom Day, Industries Minister P Rajeeve said that an expert panel which carried out a study on the handloom sector would publish its report soon. “Elaborate discussions will take place on this report and an action plan will be implemented,” he said.
A design conclave of handloom and coir sectors will also be held in Kochi, Rajeeve added. The Minister also launched this year’s Onam handloom rebate sales by conducting the first sale to actress Priyanka.
