Carpet makers miss out on weaver fund

These districts form the carpet belt that comes under Geographical Indication (GI) certification by the name of Bhadohi carpets. Weavers account for nearly half the number of people involved in carpet industry.

First vice-chairman of the Carpet Export Promotion Council (established in 1982 by the Ministry of Textiles),Sidh Nath Singh said: “Let us wait for the official notification. The term that has been used in the announcements is ‘handloom weavers’,which comes under the handloom sector while hand-knotted carpets come under the handicrafts sector.”

The chairman of the All-India Carpet Manufacturers’ Association,O P Garg,told The Indian Express: “There is nothing in the package for carpet weavers. It would have been ideal if the weavers from the carpet industry had been included. The industry has been suffering for the past many years and the financial condition of the carpet weavers is quite bad.” Garg added the announcement seems to have come in the wake of earlier visit of Rahul to Varanasi and Mirzapur.

Rajni Kant of Human Welfare Association (HWA),an organisation that is involved in the carpet weaving sector and taking up the cause of the weavers,said,” The package talks about handloom weavers and carpet weavers come under handicrafts sector. Secondly,the package deals with waiver of debt for cooperative societies,by and large,besides individual weavers but there is not a single registered cooperative society in the carpet sector. Also,individual weavers do not avail of loan as most of the work is done through the exporter-manufacturer/ trader-weaver network,where contractors play a major role,” said Kant.

Confirming that the carpet weavers were not included in the package,Additional Director (Handlooms and Textiles) K P Verma,based in Varanasi,said: “The package deals with handloom weavers involved in weaving saris,bedsheets,etc. It does not deal with carpet weavers,who come under the handicrafts sector and not handlooms.”