The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BHUBANESWAR, AUGUST 7, 2022
The Odisha Regional Office of NABARD celebrated National Handloom Day, here on Sunday. Odisha Minister for Handlooms, Textiles & Handicrafts, Rita Sahu; State Development Commissioner-cum-Additional Chief Secretary, PK Jena; Principal Secretary – Finance, Vishal Kumar Dev, NABARD Odisha Region CGM C. Udaybhaskar; weavers, NGOs and other stakeholders participated in the event.
Odisha with its rich cultural heritage in art and crafts has an immense scope for improving the extent and quality of its Handloom and Textiles products. NABARD has been taking a lot of initiatives for the Off-Farm Sector which include formation of Off Farm Producer Organisations (OFPOs) and Skill Development of the Weavers. To help in the marketing of the products of the weavers, NABARD sponsors exhibitions, supports the establishment of Rural Haat, Rural Mart for better marketing of the handloom products. Odisha has the highest number of OFPOs (10) in the country. NABARD till date has sanctioned an amount of Rs.2.33 Crore for weavers development supporting 1450 weavers, and is making efforts to organize more weavers of other clusters into the fold of OFPOs.
Minister Sahu congratulated NABARD for its sustained efforts towards rural development in Odisha including revitalization of Textile & Handloom industry in particular.
Development Commissioner Jena urged all stakeholders to come forward for greater convergence towards addressing challenges faced by the Handloom sector like drudgery, lack of marketing, etc in the State and the rural economy at large for ensuring progressive growth in all spheres.
Principal Secretary, Finance spoke on the initiatives taken by NABARD in helping better market the handloom products of the state.
NABARD has taken up GI registration of Odisha’s rich Handloom products viz. Mayurbhanj Saree, Tribals Phuta Saree, Jagatsinghpur Saree etc.
NABARD has launched “Stall in Mall” at Esplanade Mall, Bhubaneswar to help market the products of weavers of the State. As part of the Handloom Day celebrations, NABARD has sponsored 5 stalls for 5 days from August 7 to 11 helping formarketing of the handloom products.
To extend hassle free credit and working capital to weavers, NABARD RO also launched a special scheme for promotion of 10,000 JLGs covering 50,000 weavers in 3 years. Further, NABARD launched a workshop to train 20 weavers on Garment designing with collaboration of NIFT Kolkata on the eve of National Handloom Day.
