Weavers from the handloom cluster in and around Chirala on Wednesday staged a demonstration urging the Union Government to extend the benefit of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan to the crisis-ridden handlooms and handicrafts sector.
Weavers in Kotha Pandilapalli, near Chirala, who have been badly affected by the nationwide lockdown, raised slogans seeking financial assistance of ₹3,000 per month for a period of six months in addition to the ongoing supply of ration.
“Our sector has been affected the most by the COVID lockdown, as we have been getting no work from master weavers and cooperative societies ever since the lockdown was imposed in March,” they lamented.
National Federation of Handlooms and Handicrafts president Macherla Mohan Rao said that yarn and silk was unavailable due to closure of spinning mills and silk reeling units during the lockdown.
The government should take immediate steps to establish production and procurement centres in the handloom clusters with ₹300 crore as seed capital, and procure the accumulated handloom products with the cooperative societies and master weavers, besides clearing the dues to National Handlooms Development Corportion and Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society, the weavers said.
“It is high time that the government provided soft loans under the MUDRA scheme through commercial and Grameena banks,” said Rashtra Chenetha Jana Samaikya president Devana Veera Nageswara Rao.
The Centre should consider announcing a three-year moratorium on collection of Goods and Services Tax (GST), they said, appealing to authorities to ensure transportation of cotton and silk yarn from production centres such as Coimbatore and Salem in Tamil Nadu and Bengaluru in Karnataka so that idling looms could resume full-scale production.
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