It was the last Sunday before Onam and the weavers at the handloom expo organised by the Industries department at Stadium grounds in Kozhikode were mostly whiling away their time chatting with each other. A handful of customers were loitering around the stalls looking for something particular and often not finding it. Some walk away just as they ask for the price of a product, finding it too high for their liking.
“If not for the 20% government rebate no one would want to purchase handloom products. The prices have gone up much over the past year. But it is beyond our control as the prices of raw materials too have gone up,” said T.Venugopalan, a weaver with the Kadathanad Weavers’ Cooperative Society.
Hopes shattered
For the traditional handloom weavers’ societies across the State, Onam is the peak season and the whole year is a preparation for it. Other than that, they supply school uniform material and some other products through ‘Hantex’. The Industries department sets up handloom expos in every town during the festival seasons such as Onam, Vishu, and Christmas in select locations. The societies set up their stalls with all their premium products, hoping to make enough profit to clear the losses incurred during the rest of the year. However, their hopes have been shattered this year.
“The sales are very poor this season. We haven’t even sold nearly half of what we had brought here, unlike the previous year when despite heavy rains, a lot of people had turned up here,” said P.P. Chandran, a weaver with the Vadakara Weavers’ Cooperative Society.
‘Poor support’
Most of these weavers find the efforts made at the government level to support the handloom sector inadequate. Their greatest challenge is the unavailability of workers to keep the tradition going. The new generation is not interested in this profession. Though the government is funding training programmes with stipend to attract them, the societies are in no position to hire the few interested ones. Even if hired, the remuneration is not good enough to keep them in their jobs.
“What we need are good designers who could guide us to improve our colour schemes, designs and marketing in such a way that we could compete with the powerloom sector. If the government is truly dedicated to supporting this sector, give us a designer in each weavers’ society,” suggested E. Sasi from the Payyormala Weavers’ Cooperative Society.
The powerloom sector imitating the handloom products and selling them cheap is another major headache for the weavers.
