Tamil Nadu - Erode   

Govt. blamed for fall in export of handloom goods

ERODE: Government’s policy has hit exports of handloom goods produced by handloom weavers cooperatives, said former Minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam headquarters secretary K.A. Sengottiyan at Chennimalai on Wednesday.

Mr. Sengottiyan told reporters that when the AIADMK was in power district central cooperative banks had advanced cash credit to the weavers cooperatives at nine per cent interest, but after the DMK came to power the interest was increased to 12 per cent.

As a result, the cooperatives were incurring heavy losses and were not in a position to give wages and bonus to weavers. He demanded that the cash credit interest be reduced to nine per cent and below.

The former Minister said when J. Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister, rebates worth Rs. 100 crore to Rs. 110 crore were granted to the weavers’ cooperatives every year, but now it had dropped.

Further aged weavers’ pension was being delayed and the pension for June was disbursed only in October. Because of this many weavers’ cooperatives had stopped exports, Mr. Sengottiyan said adding that Cooptex had closed its showrooms in Bangalore, Mumbai and Singapore. Now it had a showroom only in Delhi.

Mr. Sengottiyan alleged that the present DMK Government was keen on promoting the powerloom sector and starting a number of powerloom weavers cooperatives and giving orders for free saris, dhotis and school uniforms to the powerloom sector.

Negligible orders were given to the handloom sector. Regarding reservations, he said the AIADMK Government had allowed 50,000 odd weavers in Chennimalai and nearby areas to produce doormats in handlooms, but now the DMK permitted the powerloom sector to produce the doormats.

AIADMK held a demonstration on Wednesday in front of the Chennimalai bus stand to highlight the handloom weavers’ problems. Mr. Sengottiyan led the demonstration in which the Perundurai MLA C. Ponnudurai, former Minister P.C. Ramasamy, former MLAs K.S. Palanisamy, S.S. Ramanidharan, S. Balakrishnan, Selvi Murugesan, former MP and MLA V.K. Chinnasamy, S.R. Subramaniam, Erode district AIADMK Secretary K.V. Ramalingam and thousands of AIADMK volunteers participated.

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