Plan to Provide Relief to Weavers
The Government of India has approved a Financial Package of Rs. 3884 crore, out of which Government of India’s share is Rs. 3137 crore and the share of the State Government is Rs. 747 crore, for one time waiver of overdue loans and interest of handloom cooperative societies and individual weavers as on 31st March, 2011. Under the Financial package, provisions have been made for fresh cheap credit to handloom cooperative societies and individual handloom weavers covered by waiver for interest subsidy of 3% for a period of 3 years for fresh loan with credit guarantee. This financial package will benefit approximately 15000 handloom weavers’ cooperative societies and 3 lakh individual handloom weavers all over the country. The Government has also announced a Comprehensive package of Rs. 2362 crore to provide cheap credit and subsidized yarn for handloom weavers and their cooperative societies. This comprehensive package will benefit 10 lakh handloom weavers and several thousand handloom cooperative societies all over the country.
The financial package and the comprehensive package are only for handloom weavers and their cooperative societies and it does not cover powerloom and mill sector.
This information was given by Smt. Panabakka Lakshmi, , Minister of State for Textiles , in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
DS/GK