Preserve heritage craft of handlooms: NAFSCOB chairman
K M Dayashankar
Inaugurates two-day handlooms exhibition organised by NABARD
Wear handlooms at least once in a week
KARIMNAGAR: Konduru Ravinder Rao, chairman NAFSCOB, TSCAB, DCCB, has called upon all sections of society to encourage the weavers by the purchasing and wearing the handlooms and their products to preserve the ancient traditional weaving art from extinction.
Mr Rao inaugurated the two-day Handlooms exhibition organised by the NABARD as part of the National Handlooms week celebrations at Revenue gardens in Karimnagar town on Tuesday along with Collector RV Karnan and NABARD Telangana region general manager Smita Mohanty.
Speaking on the occasion, the NAFSCOB chairman said that several weavers and their family members solely rely on this ancient weaving art. “It is time for us to encourage the handlooms by wearing their products so that they would get employment and conserve the ancient art”, he pointed out.
Appreciating the NABARD for organising the special handloom exhibitions to encourage the marketing of their produces, he said that Minister for IT and Handlooms K Taraka Rama Rao had also given a call to all sections of people to wear handlooms on every Monday. He said that the Telangana state government was taking all measures to encourage handloom weavers and allocated Rs 1200 crore in the budget when compared to only Rs 70 crore in the integrated Andhra Pradesh state.
Collector RV Karnan urged upon the people to recognise the hard work and time involved by the weavers and their family members in weaving the handloom products. Stating that the entire weaver family was involved in the handlooms and spends more than 100 hours to weave a fine artistic saree, he informed the people to wear handlooms at least once in a week as it was good and comfortable when compared to synthetic fabric.
Highlighting the importance of encouraging the handlooms, NABARD Telangana region general manager Smita Mohanty said that the NABARD was initiatives for encouraging the handlooms by providing skill training for the self-help group women to produce value-added fabric such as Ikath sarees in Nalgonda, Amarachinta handloom and silk sarees in Mahbubnagar district and Chithrika artisans producer company in Hyderabad.
Karimnagar NABARD AGM P Ananth said that explained about the importance of organising handloom exhibition to encourage the sales of products produced by weavers. He said that the several stalls were set up the handloom weavers of Karimnagar, Warangal, Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda and other districts. Some of the NGOs and the Karimnagar dairy had also participated in the exhibition. NABARAD DDM Karimnagar cluster P Manohar Reddy and others were also present.
