Production of Bathukamma sarees picking up pace

The Telangana government has launched the Bathukamma Sarees Scheme (BSS) with the two-pronged approach — to provide work for weavers of Sircilla and also help women from BPL (below poverty line) families celebrate the floral festival of Bathukamma.

With Telangana State’s floral festival of Bathukamma fast approaching, the work for the production of Bathukamma sarees has picked up pace in Sircilla. About 30 percent of 87 lakh sarees meant for the distribution among women from BPL families in Telangana during the festival, have been already produced and delivered to the Telangana Handloom Weavers’ Cooperatives’ Society (TSCO).

The sarees would be ready for distribution during the festivities and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is likely to launch the scheme which was announced by him in March this year.

The government had placed an order for 87 lakh Bathukamma sarees at a cost of Rs 183 each and released Rs 160 crore funds in May this year. More than 5,000 powerlooms, including 1,890 looms, belonging to mutually aided cooperative societies and another 2,493 belonging to small scale industries, are working round-the-clock to produce sarees before the deadline. Several powerlooms were recently upgraded at a cost of Rs 96,000 each through funding shared by the Centre and State governments.

Handloom and Textiles Director Shailaja Ramaiyer said that the work order to produce 2.6 crore metres of cloth for sarees was placed to weavers from Sircilla. About 30 percent of the work has been completed and delivered to TSCO for packing. September 15 has been set as the deadline for delivering the remaining sarees.

Officials said that if the powerlooms continue to work at a slow pace for production of Bathukamma sarees, they might have to consider a proposal to place orders to other States. Two varieties of sarees, one with border for the elderly women and printed ones for the young.

The government had already placed bulk orders for textile for school uniforms of various government schools across the State with these weavers.