The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Expert gives tips on quality to weavers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 21, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Expert gives tips on quality to weavers

By Our Staff Reporter

A.C. Kalidas, a dyeing expert from Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, explaining the dye making process to a weaver at Nagari.

NAGARI (CHITTOOR DT.), JULY 20. Weavers of the Nagari textile cluster in the district have got an exposure to the technical aspects involved in dyeing of yarn for lasting quality of the finished product.

At a workshop organised on Monday by the Union Government's Textiles Committee at Nagari on Tamil Nadu border, A.C. Kalidas, a dyeing expert from Tirupur, said that Nagari weavers were second to none with an export potential of Rs.1,000 crores, but they faltered in areas like removal of hardness of water and the use of chemicals and alkali in dye preparation which leaves a telling effect on the life and shade of the cloth. He even demonstrated with the help of raw material on the preparation of the right mixture of dye which he claimed would not only improve the quality of cloth, but also reduce process cost.

A. Unnikrishnan, Deputy Director of Textiles Committee, Tirupur, the hosiery nerve centre in Tamil Nadu that nets an annual export revenue of Rs. 5,000 crores, suggested to weavers to form an association to improve their bargaining capacity. "With the advent of the World Trade Organisation, weavers have to improve quality and reduce cost to put up a united fight against Chinese and Korean products deluging the western export market,'' he said.

Teeka Chari of National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), Chittoor, explained the Government schemes available to them under the Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF), while Koteswara Rao of Handloom Export Promotion Council gave an update of its activities.

Vasanthakumar, Assistant Director, Textiles Committee, Chennai, gave his introductory remarks while E. Ratnam of Nagari Textiles Committee welcomed the gathering.

An interesting aspect of the meet was that the speech by officials was in Telugu, while the queries by participants -- all of them belonging to the traditional weaving community of Senguntha Mudaliars -- were in colloquial Tamil.

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