Handloom weavers in a fix as patronage dwindles.

KARUR: Dwindling patronage and lesser jobs have filled the cup of woes of the Karur handloom weavers to the brim. The once famed craftsmen are finding themselves in a quandary after the export base they helped create has been swept away from them with the onslaught of power loom and mass production.

Constricted space for the handloom weavers meant that they were receiving meagre wages amounting to Rs. 100 to Rs. 120 per day.

Not all days are workdays and job works are not what they used to be like 10 years ago. The misery of the handloom assistants, mostly elderly women, is far worse with princely earning of Rs. 60 a day.

There are around an estimated 20,000 handloom weavers both within and outside the cooperative fold in Karur district.

There are 41 active weavers' cooperative societies of which around 20 are less than a couple of years old. Though that seems to be a sign of resurgence it actually is not, aver the weavers.

"Our future is bleak and the average age of the weaver is going up steadily as no youth is coming forward to learn the trade," says K. A. Chinnusamy, president of the Karur District Handloom Weavers' Protection Association.

He contends that there has not been an upward wage revision for the weavers in the past few years and with prices of essentials spiraling, the life of the handloom weaver is becoming all the more hard. What we want is job opportunity and acceptable wages for all handloom weavers, Mr. Chinnusamy says.

The governments have come out with social security schemes but not all the weavers have benefited from them, some weavers claim. There are benefit schemes for weavers including health insurance, education for children, social security scheme, etc.

One grouse of the weavers is that while they are used to make samples for export products, the actual product is made somewhere else and alien conditions.

Most of us are not at all benefited by the export orders while only a few hundred weavers are benefited, they claim. If still we weavers are enduring a wretched living condition then the malaise is deep-rooted. We want to explore new markets and governments should support us towards that end, the handloom weavers observe.
Courtesy The Hindu