Bijnore Cluster

With around 7000 looms and 13000 weavers operating here, Bijnore cluster is the prime nucleus for products like Duster cloths, Home furnishing, and Dress materials. The Bijnore handloom cluster is stretched across a length of 60 km and breadth of 40 km. About 20% of the total production is supplied to Delhi based exporters like Fab India, All India Handloom Board & other major exporters through middle-men. The rest is sold in the domestic market at Naogaon, Sadat, Nahtore, Sheohara, Dhampur and Kath etc.

Fibre2fashion.com had an exclusive interview with Mr. Raman Shiv Kumar, CDP Officer of Bijnore Handloom Cluster, in which he threw light on Initiatives of Government by saying that, The IHCDP is being implemented in 20 handloom clusters across the country. This is a project of DCHL and started in the year 2006. Various implementing agencies have been appointed by DCHL for implementing this project. At the first instance an extensive baseline survey was conducted in all these clusters by the individual implementing agencies. This was followed by SWOT analysis based on which action plans are prepared for each cluster. The government has allocated rupees two crore for each cluster. The implementing agency gets the action plan approved by the APEX committee and the funds are sanctioned accordingly. This is a four year project and every year a fresh action plan is prepared and implemented. The important elements of the action plan are Marketing, Design development, and training, Technology up gradation, Infrastructure development and strengthening of association."

The weavers are taken to various tours to make them learn to work in groups. Trips to textiles fairs give them a detailed idea of variety of fabrics and products in the market, lot of finished products are developed from existing fabrics, and new fabrics & designs are also developed from which finished products are developed again. The weavers took part in various retail exhibitions where these products were displayed and sold. There was a good response for these products. The weavers participated in more number of exhibitions in various metros and their product knowledge and understanding of market requirement developed. The fabrics when converted into finished products attracted many bulk buyers during the exhibitions, which resulted in getting bulk orders.

Talking about the facilities provided to the weavers Mr. Raman Shiv Kumar says,"There has been development of Common Facility center with facilities like Information center with internet, Show rooms, yarn depot, Testing laboratories and pilot production units. Modern Dye house for yarn dyeing with latest Cabinet dyeing machines, Boiler, Gensests and other equipments, exposure visits to various textile production centers, participation in National and International Textile Expos are some important steps taken for the weavers betterment."

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Bargarh Handloom Cluster - A caption for every motif or design

Bargarh Handloom cluster is spread over the entire Block of Bargarh, Attabira, Bijepur and Sohella. The cluster has 7158 numbers of looms as per the survey report of the zonal Handloom office taken up during the year 2004 out of which 5102 looms are working in 299 different villages.

The main products of the cluster are cotton sarees of tie and dye and small amount of dress materials, lungis and napkins etc. The annual production is around 10 Crores rupees. The products of this area are mostly marketed in Orissa and National market. The cluster so to say represents Orissa in quantitative and qualitative Tie and Dye Cotton Sarees as no other clusters of other districts in Orissa produces such sarees.

Bargarh is one of the major revenue generating district, situated in western part of Orissa. It is 380 Kms far from state capital, Bhubaneswar and around 50 Kms far from Sambalpur Town. The town is well connected with road and railways. it is on the Road side of National Highway number 5 (Mumbai - Kolkata). The nearest Air port is Raipur, state capital of Chhatisgarh.

The weaving in the cluster by the traditional weavers’ community popularly known as "Bhulia" came in to existence during mid of 17th century and with increase in their population, they spread to other nearby places. They initially belong to Rajasthan and were presented during the 14th century to the ruler of Patna State, a king of Chouhan dynasty "Ramai Deb". Later on they were presented to the king of Sonepur during the 16th century and scattered to the nearby district i.e., Bargarh in the next century.

The cluster consists sizable number of professional weavers (Non traditional) from Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (Kuli caste) weavers, which in total accounts for 60 %. Generally these weavers are less skilled and engaged in production of Napkin, Lungi, Sarees, Dhotis, etc.

Weaving with Tie dye in the cluster prior to 40”s was done with 40''/42'' looms operated with hanging slay and engaged in producing Kapta, Lungi and Napkins made of 12's/16's/20's cotton yarn. The yarns were dyed with vegetable colours. The main colours were Yellow (from Turmeric), Maroon (From bark of Aal tree), Blue form Nile and Black (From Hirakasi and Chakda Seeds).

Fabrics of vegetable colours were sometimes not fast and ranges of colours were also limited, forcing the Tie-Dye production in to limited colours and so also the design. Such practice was on vogue till the mid of 40s when vat colour was first substituted for in place of some vegetable colours.

The next major changes in the cluster took place with the introduction of twisted cotton mercerized yarn and synthetic colours in the early 60's. The looms started widening mainly to 52" width for normal sarees and other production and 90" for double bed sheet production. There were also few 60'' / 72" looms to accommodate weaving of middle-sized bed sheets.

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Burdwan keeps Mughal era handloom tradition alive

'Jamdani' and 'Tangail' are two pioneer sarees in the field of heritage handloom products of Bengal handloom and Burdwan handloom cluster in particular.

'Jamdani' - the great characteristic of fine art in hand weaving derived from a Persian word 'Jam' meaning a 'cup' and 'Dani' denotes the 'container'. Jamdani style of weaving flourished under the benign, rich and enlightened patronage of kings and emperors.

It may be considered as a textile of excellence for its super fine qualities in the fifteenth & sixteenth centuries. Excellence in weaving lies in the virtuosity of forms drawn from the social, religious and natural environment and translated through a particular technique and the weaver's sensitivity to create a new art form.

The figured muslin with delicate motifs worked on by deft fingers, needed besides skill, unlimited patience, a length of cloth sometimes taking months to weave.

The "Mughals" recognized this excellence, acknowledged its rarity. During the region of Emperor Jahangir and Aurangzeb, the manufacturer of finer Jamdani was a rare product and a royal monopoly. After the Mughalera, Jamdanis continued to be developed under the patronage of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Tanda and Nawab of Dhaka (Bangladesh).

The weavers of Dhaka were expert in Jamdani known as 'Daccai Jamdani' for producing mainly sarees and dress materials. While the weavers of "Tanda" and "Varanasi" in Awadh were experts in weaving of 'Awadh Jamdani' for producing mainly sarees, dress materials, handkerchiefs, Ornas, caps, table cover etc.

Both "Dacca" & "Tanda" Jamdanis, the ground warp and weft threads are commonly of fine nature grey cotton yarn of counts, ranging from 60s to 150s. However, mulberry silk (13/15 Den filature) yarn were also used. The warp yarn used for selvedge at normally 1/4th width are either grey or bleached cotton in both the styles.

In case of indigo dyed Nilambari Jamdani sarees of Bengal, the selvedge yarn dyed with madder colour is beautifully matched. Bleached cotton, indigo and black dyed cotton, silver and gold zari, munga threads are used as extra weft for figured motif in Dacca whereas, bleached cotton and gold zari are in vogue in "Tanda" as extra weft. The small cut piece of 3-5 ply of these extra yarns are used for the desired effect of each motif using the same count as that of warp yarn.

8' x 8' pit looms were generally used for producing figured Jamdani. Like other sarees, hank sizing is largely followed for Jamdani from hank form yarn available in market.

The motion of layout of Jamdani fabrics are directly woven on loom by traditional master weavers from their hereditary skill, experience and talent. Traditional Jamdani motifs are geometric in concept, adopted from local flowers, birds, leaves, zig-zag lines, and so on by the weavers who improved and evolved a directory of design of "Dacca Gharana" These designs have its nomenclature in Hazar-buti, Chand, Tara-buti, Dora-kata' Dabutar- khop, Rose-leaf etc.

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