India approves Rs 23.5 bn package for handloom weavers

The Government of India has approved a Rs. 23.5 billion package for the benefit of handloom weavers in the country, Textiles Minister Anand Sharma said in Lok Sabha, the Lower House of Parliament.

The comprehensive package will enable the crisis ridden handloom sector in the country to meet its important needs of cheap hank yarn and credit at low interest rates.

The Minister said the package has been made by modifying the two existing schemes - Integrated Handlooms Development Scheme for availability of cheap credit and Mills Gate Price for availability of subsidized hank yarn.

The Rs. 23.5 billion package includes providing 3 percent interest subvention to weavers for three years.

The subsidized credit to the weavers will be made available through SIDBI, NABARD and the nationalized banks, while the National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC) would provide subsidized yarn.

For more details please visit : India approves Rs 23.5 bn package for handloom weavers @ Fibre2fashion

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Anand Sharma Announces Comprehensive Package for Handloom Weavers

Government is actively seized with the concerned being faced by the handloom sector which employs 43 lakh weavers. In recent times, this sector has come under stress on account of high yarn prices and stiff competition from power loom and mill sector.

Apart from this, access to credit is not easily forthcoming. The bulk of handloom industry weavers are from UP, West Bengal, Orissa, North East and Southern belt, large number of which belong to the minority community and women. A focused attention to this sector is, therefore an imperative from the stand point of our ‘inclusive growth’ agenda.

Loan waiver for handloom weavers

On assuming charge of the Ministry of Textiles, Shri Anand Sharma had taken a comprehensive review of this sector. In the Budget 2011-12, the Government had announced a loan waiver package of Rs. 3,000 crores, which was expected to benefit 15,000 handloom weavers cooperative societies and 3 lakh handloom weavers, who had been unable to repay their loan on account of economic difficulties. However, a large number of weavers of U.P. who operate on an individual basis and are not organised in the cooperative sector, were left out of its ambit.

A meeting of Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) was held yesterday and a decision of covering individual weavers also, a large number of whom are from UP, will be sent for consideration of the Cabinet.

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