The O/o Development Commissioner (Handlooms), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India (GoI), is working for development of Handloom Sector with a vision to develop a strong, vibrant Handloom Sector to provide sustainable employment to Handloom weavers. The overall goal of this office can be understood by following points:

Mission
• To make the Handloom sector self sustainable for inclusive growth.
• Empowerment of the weavers through technological upgradation.
• Focused, flexible and holistic approach to meet the challenges of domestic and global market.
• Brand building in global and domestic markets.
• Easy access to raw material at reasonable prices.

Objective
• To ensure overall development of the Handloom, including welfare of handloom weavers.
• To provide new upgraded looms and accessories to handloom weavers.
• To provide subsidized yarn in the clusters areas.
• Market orientation by associating entrepreneurs, designers, and professionals for marketing, designing and managing the production.
• To facilitate process of credit from financial institutions/banks.

Functions
• To develop the handloom clusters and empower the weavers with a provision of new looms, CFC, Yarn Depot, buyer–seller meet.
• To set up Yarn Depots to provide easy access to quality yarns at subsidized rates to be set up in the HL clusters.
• To provide credit facility at low interest rates for production and marketing activities.
• Developing capacity for developing fashion and market directed design and products.
• Developing market for Handloom products by creating strong brand and involving private sector in marketing and export.

Handloom Craft Village (New Activity) recently started.

For integrated sustainable development of handloom with tourism & culture, this is a new initiative of this office with the help of State Governments concerned. 5 villages are being developed as “Tourist handloom village” are as under:
1. Sharan, Distt. Kullu, Himachal Pradesh
2. Kanihama, Budgam, Srinagar
3. Rampur, Bodh Gaya, Bihar
4. Borjuri, Golaghat, Assam
5. Kovalam, Thiruanathpuram, Kerala
 
Award to Handloom Weavers:
To encourage the Handloom weavers who are doing extraordinary job by producing unique products on handloom, this office is conferring Sant Kabir Award, National Award and National Merit Certificates. These Awards are being conferred every year by this office. These Awards encourage the individual weavers to develop & produce products of high quality. Preference is also being given in several marketing activities like expos being organised at International, National and Regional levels. The last date for inviting application for “Year-2018” has been extended to 21st March, 2020. Interested applicants may forward their entries through this forum by providing their basic details in the application form provided, so that our field offices (Weavers Service Centres) team may contact applicant for further assistance.

The purpose of this white-paper is to solicit public inputs for ongoing activities of this office as well as new thoughts/ideas and inputs. We would like to adopt a participatory process to prepare this strategy and seek perspectives from a broad spectrum of stakeholders including government officials in the Centre and the States, policy researchers, entrepreneurs, technology developers, as well as Civil Society.

The last date for submissions on this forum is 3rd June, 2020.