Piling stocks worth Rs 250-Cr, no new Govt orders for Batukamma sarees hit Sircilla textile park hard

SIRCILLA: Lack of demand for polyester cloth in the Hyderabad market and with no new orders from the Congress Government for Batukamma sarees, Rajiv Vidya Mission (RVM) school uniforms, and KCR kit the power loom sector of Rajanna-Sircilla district in Telangana was hit very hard.

The earlier Government which used to place orders for the Government programmes by January every year, lost the election but the textile owners and the owners of the power looms needed to get paid for what they had already supplied and were ready to supply.

“Rs 80 crore for the cloth that we made for the Government was billed, another Rs 170 crore was yet to be billed,” said Jindam Chakrapani speaking to NewsTAP, who owns over 400 power looms in Sricilla. This means that the owners of these power looms have no money at hand to invest and purchase the material to produce polyester cloth for sale in the market at Patharghatti.

Elaborating on the lack of demand Ashok Rao Deputy Director of the Textiles and Handlooms Department said that the problem is with the cheaper cloth dumped by the merchants from Malegaon of Maharashtra. Polyester comes cheaper for wholesalers in Patharghatti because the daily wage per meter there in Malegaon is Rs 1, while it is around Rs 8-11 per meter per person in Sircilla.

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“There are no fresh orders given by the State Government for Batukamma sarees or any other Government programme so far, but as far as the stocks are concerned, they piled up because of lack of demand and severe competition from cheaper polyester entering the Hyderabad market,” Ashok Rao explained.

The problem faced by the merchants who invest by paying for the material and get the cloth made by the weavers is that they believed that the BRS Government would be back and they get new orders for the Government programmes.

“For four months there were no payments, because of the election code and we said we could take the money once the new Goverrnment is formed. But so far there is no payment by the new Government nor there are any new orders,” Chakrapani rued.

Few other owners pointed out that a majority of the 33,000 strong weaver community voters stood behind former Minister KT Rama Rao in the elections. After the elections, they were all identified and targeted by the Congress Government for not clearing the pending bills.

The weaving community demands the Government to process new orders for the RVM school uniforms because the new order of 1.5 crore meters of polyester cloth for 25 lakh students worth Rs 120 crore would once again help run the handlooms.

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“This will provide gainful employment for the power loom workers for three months,” said Annaldas Anil, president of the cloth producers association. Explaining the crisis he said that the weavers who were traditionally operating handlooms shut down that work and started depending on power looms to complete the Government orders, particularly the Batukamma sarees. “Now only 800 handlooms are working out of 15,000. Out of 28 sizing units, only 14 are working. 270 dying units out of 300 are shut down,” he said that returning to handlooms now could be impossible.

The Textile Park at the Baddennapalli of Tangallapalli mandal of Rajanna Sircilla district was established in 2003 in an area of 650 acres. There are around 113 units in it that could produce over 1 crore meters of cloth. Now the number of units has fallen to 65.

Urging the Congress Government to respond to the crisis looming over the power loom sector at the textile park, KTR took to X and said that the homegrown talented power loom weavers of Siricilla have seen great growth & expansion since the formation of Telangana with the active support of state Government.

“My request to the Congress Government is to continue and strengthen the sector more as it has the potential to grow and compete with the Tirupur cluster in Tamil Nadu. Hearing stories of distress setting in yet again which can be disastrous for the sector,” he said.