Plans to set up a training institute and a Rs 100-crore mega cluster.
Riding on the Centre’s incentives, the West Bengal government is gearing up to revive the ailing handloom sector. While a Rs 210-crore loan waiver package from the Centre is likely to rejuvenate many of the defunct weavers’ cooperative societies across the state, a handloom training institute will also soon come up in West Bengal’s Nadia district.
“Out of the Centre’s loan waiver scheme Rs 210 crore is expected to be given to West Bengal. We will go for the strictest method of screening weavers’ cooperative societies, by which we can identify societies and they can get the benefit of this scheme,” state Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Manas Bhuniya said.
According to the state government’s estimates, there are as many as 265 such cooperative societies, most of which Bhuniya said were “closed, sick or defunct.”
“West Bengal is largely dependent on the MSME sector and a significant contribution comes from the textile industry. This loan waiver is going to be a big boost for the state’s handloom sector. Moreover, we are availing of other incentives of the central government’s restructuring scheme for the handloom sector,” he added.
The central government has announced a loan waiver package of Rs 3,500 crores, which is expected to benefit 15,000 handloom weavers’ cooperative societies and 300,000 handloom weavers across the country, who had been unable to repay their loans on account of economic difficulties.
This loan waiver is one of the components of the scheme of “Revival, Reform and Restructuring Package for the Handloom Sector”. According to accounts given by Minister of State for Textiles Panabaka Lakshmi in the Rajya Sabha recently, West Bengal is likely to get Rs 420.66 crore under the scheme.
West Bengal is also likely to get Rs 100 crore to set up a mega handloom cluster at Medinipore. The state has also proposed a silk park in Malda and two textile parks in Samudragarh (Bardhaman) and Dhanekhali (Hooghly).
Distribution of identity cards along with health insurance and credit cards among artisans in the state is also likely to begin soon.
“The health insurance cards will entitle the handicraft artisans to free treatment up to Rs 15,000, while the credit card limit will be Rs 2 lakh. We have already received the Centre’s approval for this,” Bhuniya said.
There are about 750,000 handloom workers in West Bengal who are likely to benefit from this scheme.
Meanwhile, the All India Institute of Handloom Technology (IIHT) will soon come up at Shantipur in Nadia district, for which land has already been earmarked. This will provide short-term and long-term training to technical personnel to be employed in the handloom sector.
Though earlier, the West Bengal government was asked to share 20 per cent of the cost, the Centre has now agreed to provide the entire funding for setting up the institute, following the state’s request.
There are currently five such institutes in the country — one each at Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), Salem (Tamil Nadu), Guwahati (Assam), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Bargarh (Odisha).
