Who should have the right to manufacture the pure silk saris that traditional Indian weavers are so famous for? This question has two major sectors of the textile industry – handloom and powerloom – locked in a battle that has intensified in the past month.
Pure silk and cotton saris with specialised borders are one of the 11 textile products that the government of India has reserved for the handloom sector in the Handloom (Reservation of Articles for Production) Act. This list also includes specific kinds of dhotis, lungis, bedsheets, shawls and dress materials that cannot, by law, be manufactured on powerlooms.
The powerloom sector has been opposed to the Act ever since it came into force in 1985, pushing the government in the mid-1990s to cut down the original list of 22 reserved products to the current 11 items. Now, powerloom manufacturers want even fewer items on the handloom-only list.
On March 9, a delegation of at least six powerloom-using textile associations – including the All India Silk Weavers Federation – submitted a memorandum to the ministry of textiles, demanding that saris and lungis be removed from the list of items reserved for handloom weavers. Worried about the collapse of their ailing industry, handloom weavers have sent in their own appeals for stricter implementation of the Act and higher budget allocations to save the handloom sector.
While both parties have held separate meetings with the textile ministry in the past month, the ministry has not yet responded to their appeals. Scroll.in’s emails to the ministry have also not been answered.
Breaking the law
Under the Handloom Reservation Act, handloom-reserved saris are defined as “100% cotton yarn or silk yarn” saris with specific kinds of woven borders, including the popular zari brocades on Banarasi or Kanchipuram saris. The reserved lungis are defined as pure cotton or silk fabrics woven in checks or stripes.
According to both handloom and powerloom operators, if the central government removes saris and lungis from the list in the Act, it would merely legitimise the widespread production of these textiles that the powerloom sector has already been producing illegally for years.
To implement the Handloom Reservation Act, the central government appoints enforcement officers who are authorised to inspect any textile workshop, seize powerlooms that violate the law and file a police complaint against the offending party. If convicted, the penalty could be up to six months of imprisonment or a fine of Rs 5,000.
But weavers and processors from the handloom sector – which accounts for 15% of the total fabric production in India – claim that action is rarely taken against powerlooms that blatantly violate the law.
“Across the country, from Varanasi to Ludhiana to Karnataka and Andhra, powerloom weavers are making imitations of the saris we make and selling them to consumers as handloom products,” said M Mohan Rao, president of the Handloom Weavers Association of Andhra Pradesh. Rao claims that many powerloom processors also stamp their products with the government’s official handloom mark to charge higher rates from consumers. “The government’s enforcement agencies are not taking much interest in checking violations.”
‘Seizures are a pain’
According to Rao, nearly two lakh inspections of powerloom workshops took place every year from 2009 to 2014, but the number of police complaints lodged were merely 12 in 2009-10 and 113 in 2013-'14. Conviction figures have been as low as nine (in 2010-11).
Powerloom owners admit that they regularly flout the law and get away with minor fines even before a complaint is filed. The reason, they say, is because they have no choice.
“There is barely any handloom sector left in India, particularly in Karnataka, so we have to make the traditional saris and lungis that we used to make on handlooms,” said C Banasankara, president of the Mysore Powerloom Silk Manufacturers Cooperative Society, one of the six associations that approached the textile ministry with a memorandum for de-reservation. “The repeated inspections and seizures of our looms under the Handloom Reservation Act are a pain.”
Of the 26 lakh metric tonnes of silk thread spun every year in India, says Banasankara, 70% comes from Karnataka, where it is used for a range of traditional South Indian saris. “But in all of Karnataka’s textile mills, only 5% still use handlooms,” he said.
No incentives for handloom
Across the country, say industry experts, powerlooms have flourished because the government offers substantial subsidies to powerloom weavers at the cost of handlooms.
According to Rao, the central government has been allocating barely 10% of its textile budget to the handloom sector. Since 2010, the Centre has also granted more than Rs 11,000 crore in subsidies in textiles, which includes upgradation of machinery. “Of this, only Rs 2,000 crore was allocated to the handloom sector,” said Rao.
The result has been a decline in both the size and quality of the handloom industry.
“In Varanasi, only 30% of our famous weavers continue to work on handlooms, and even they cannot afford to use pure silk threads anymore – they are forced to use duplicate silk threads or China-made threads instead,” said Anup Kumar Shrivastav, a senior manager at the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, a Varanasi-based organisation working for the rights of handloom weavers.
Because powerlooms require fewer workers per loom than handlooms, the lack of incentives to continue with handlooms has created a problem of growing unemployment in traditional handloom hubs like Varanasi, says Shrivastav.
“It is the weaver labour force which suffers the most because of unemployment, while loom owners simply move to powerlooms to earn more money,” said Hasan Ali, a textile producer in Varanasi who owns both a handloom and a powerloom. “Even the employed labourers continue to earn the same pittance as before.”
Banasankara, on the other hand, claims the powerloom industry has great employment potential and is currently suffering from a shortage of staff in Karnataka. “Weaving is hard work, and the new generation of youth from traditional weaving families would rather get into software or any other job that pays better,” he said.
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Pure silk and cotton saris with specialised borders are one of the 11 textile products that the government of India has reserved for the handloom sector in the Handloom (Reservation of Articles for Production) Act. This list also includes specific kinds of dhotis, lungis, bedsheets, shawls and dress materials that cannot, by law, be manufactured on powerlooms.
The powerloom sector has been opposed to the Act ever since it came into force in 1985, pushing the government in the mid-1990s to cut down the original list of 22 reserved products to the current 11 items. Now, powerloom manufacturers want even fewer items on the handloom-only list.
On March 9, a delegation of at least six powerloom-using textile associations – including the All India Silk Weavers Federation – submitted a memorandum to the ministry of textiles, demanding that saris and lungis be removed from the list of items reserved for handloom weavers. Worried about the collapse of their ailing industry, handloom weavers have sent in their own appeals for stricter implementation of the Act and higher budget allocations to save the handloom sector.
While both parties have held separate meetings with the textile ministry in the past month, the ministry has not yet responded to their appeals. Scroll.in’s emails to the ministry have also not been answered.
Breaking the law
Under the Handloom Reservation Act, handloom-reserved saris are defined as “100% cotton yarn or silk yarn” saris with specific kinds of woven borders, including the popular zari brocades on Banarasi or Kanchipuram saris. The reserved lungis are defined as pure cotton or silk fabrics woven in checks or stripes.
According to both handloom and powerloom operators, if the central government removes saris and lungis from the list in the Act, it would merely legitimise the widespread production of these textiles that the powerloom sector has already been producing illegally for years.
To implement the Handloom Reservation Act, the central government appoints enforcement officers who are authorised to inspect any textile workshop, seize powerlooms that violate the law and file a police complaint against the offending party. If convicted, the penalty could be up to six months of imprisonment or a fine of Rs 5,000.
But weavers and processors from the handloom sector – which accounts for 15% of the total fabric production in India – claim that action is rarely taken against powerlooms that blatantly violate the law.
“Across the country, from Varanasi to Ludhiana to Karnataka and Andhra, powerloom weavers are making imitations of the saris we make and selling them to consumers as handloom products,” said M Mohan Rao, president of the Handloom Weavers Association of Andhra Pradesh. Rao claims that many powerloom processors also stamp their products with the government’s official handloom mark to charge higher rates from consumers. “The government’s enforcement agencies are not taking much interest in checking violations.”
‘Seizures are a pain’
According to Rao, nearly two lakh inspections of powerloom workshops took place every year from 2009 to 2014, but the number of police complaints lodged were merely 12 in 2009-10 and 113 in 2013-'14. Conviction figures have been as low as nine (in 2010-11).
Powerloom owners admit that they regularly flout the law and get away with minor fines even before a complaint is filed. The reason, they say, is because they have no choice.
“There is barely any handloom sector left in India, particularly in Karnataka, so we have to make the traditional saris and lungis that we used to make on handlooms,” said C Banasankara, president of the Mysore Powerloom Silk Manufacturers Cooperative Society, one of the six associations that approached the textile ministry with a memorandum for de-reservation. “The repeated inspections and seizures of our looms under the Handloom Reservation Act are a pain.”
Of the 26 lakh metric tonnes of silk thread spun every year in India, says Banasankara, 70% comes from Karnataka, where it is used for a range of traditional South Indian saris. “But in all of Karnataka’s textile mills, only 5% still use handlooms,” he said.
No incentives for handloom
Across the country, say industry experts, powerlooms have flourished because the government offers substantial subsidies to powerloom weavers at the cost of handlooms.
According to Rao, the central government has been allocating barely 10% of its textile budget to the handloom sector. Since 2010, the Centre has also granted more than Rs 11,000 crore in subsidies in textiles, which includes upgradation of machinery. “Of this, only Rs 2,000 crore was allocated to the handloom sector,” said Rao.
The result has been a decline in both the size and quality of the handloom industry.
“In Varanasi, only 30% of our famous weavers continue to work on handlooms, and even they cannot afford to use pure silk threads anymore – they are forced to use duplicate silk threads or China-made threads instead,” said Anup Kumar Shrivastav, a senior manager at the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, a Varanasi-based organisation working for the rights of handloom weavers.
Because powerlooms require fewer workers per loom than handlooms, the lack of incentives to continue with handlooms has created a problem of growing unemployment in traditional handloom hubs like Varanasi, says Shrivastav.
“It is the weaver labour force which suffers the most because of unemployment, while loom owners simply move to powerlooms to earn more money,” said Hasan Ali, a textile producer in Varanasi who owns both a handloom and a powerloom. “Even the employed labourers continue to earn the same pittance as before.”
Banasankara, on the other hand, claims the powerloom industry has great employment potential and is currently suffering from a shortage of staff in Karnataka. “Weaving is hard work, and the new generation of youth from traditional weaving families would rather get into software or any other job that pays better,” he said.