Centre lines up Rs 175cr for handloom sector

In order to revive the handloom industry, the Central government would allot Rs 175 crore in its new handloom package.

Of this, Rs 100 crore would be spent on developing a handloom mark, which would differentiate between a handloom and powerloom product.

Addressing a press conference, Jairam Ramesh, Union minister of state for commerce, said that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) was working on cleaning the bad debts of co-operatives through infusion of funds attached with improved legal and organisational service.

This is on the lines of the new handloom package as announced by the finance minister, P Chidambaram, in his budget presentation.

The new handloom package envisages setting up of 100 new clusters of handloom across the country with an outlay of Rs 50 crore.

About Rs 10 crore will be allocated to scale up the number of depots that supply yarn to handloom weaver, to 230 from the current number of 65. Another Rs 15 crore would be spent on upgrading the pit looms to jacquard looms during the next five years.

Ramesh said that a handloom mark would be launched early next year.

Talking about the need for replantation, Ramesh said that Vietnam and Sri Lanka were able to ensure better prices for rubber, coffee, pepper and tea since the plantations were younger, (of about 15-20 years) compared to plantation in India, which was around 40-50 years old.

Nabard would take a final decision on providing credit for replantation in a month's time. The central and state governments, cultivators and Nabard would collectively moot a plan for replantation of pepper, coffee and rubber, involving an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore.

The replantation plan would involve 15 hectares of rubber plantation at an investment of Rs 500 crore, 90 hectares of coffee plantation involving about Rs 600 crore and 50,000 hectares of pepper plantation at an investment of Rs 400 crore.