'Small weavers victims of govt negligence, faulty policy'

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SME Times News Bureau | 10 May, 2012
Defective policy, poor infrastructure, neglect and competition from multinationals have taken a toll on the communities of traditional weavers in the country, a BJP functionary and an official of the weavers' cell of the party says.

"Weavers all over the country have been facing hardships in every sphere - from policy defect to policy neglect by the government. One of the major problems is the negligible amount of credit available to them," Muralidhar Rao, national secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told IANS.

The BJP Tuesday raised the problems of weavers at a daylong open house, "Bunkar Samar Shankhnad", in the national capital. Nearly 6,000 weavers from all over the country attended the event. Most of those present were associated with the party's weavers' cell.

"Individual weavers are not getting credit, while weavers' societies are getting need-based credit. Only 20 percent of the weavers are attached to the societies. The rest are independent and are not under the credit framework. It has forced them to take loans from moneylenders," Rao said.

He added that the defective government policies "have created a non-level playing field". "The prices of inputs like yarn and colours are spiralling. Availability of yarn - the traditional fibre used by the weavers - has become difficult," he said.

A document prepared by the BJP says: "Livelihoods of nearly 1.5 crore weavers and people dependent on related industry was at stake."

The document adds that in the last eight years nearly 200,00,00 weavers have been forced out of their traditional livelihood.

Citing an independent study, the document says weavers are employed for only 80-100 days in a year. "Millions of weavers are working out of their homes in the absence of electricity and poor infrastructure", Rao said.

"If a weaver has a pit loom (embedded in the earth), he has to cope with water-logging for nearly four months a year and the government does not offer subsidy to him to revive his trade after monsoon," the BJP leader added.

Rao said, "Weavers were second largest community after farmers and one the biggest providers of employment in the country".

"Reforms have not taken the interest of weavers into consideration, but have catered to the needs of multinational firms. The gap between the needs of indigenous weavers and the multinational-aided textile sector is growing. Handloom is not the core of economic reforms," he said.

The document prepared by the BJP says, "The country had nearly 23.8 lakh hand-operated looms according to a official census in 2010."

According to Rao, the BJP is trying to address issues of the "uncared for community of backward Muslim weavers in Uttar Pradesh, who were not communal".

India's heritage of weaving is nearly 5,000 years old and goes back to the Indus Valley Civilisation.