The carpets made locally find a space in the households in many parts of the world carrying the city’s name for centuries. The city happens to be the capital of pile carpets in the whole south India. The intrinsic art of woollen pile carpet making was believed to have been promoted by the Persians who migrated to this region during the Muhammaddin regime.
The local `pile carpets’, are much sought after across the globe. They are in great demand in US, Australia, Germany and the UK. But the city’s fame is all set to fade into a history now with the popular age-old art dying natural death.
The city was once thriving on the carpet industry with over 100 units engaging more than 1,000 weavers, mostly women. Sanivarapupeta, Tangellamudi, Lakshavarapupeta and I-Town are used to be the hubs of carpet industry a few years back. Now, the number of units has come down to three each at Tangellamudi, Sanivarapueta and Lakshavarapupeta.
Synthetic carpetsTo quote an exporter Arshad Ahammod, the onslaught of the mill made synthetic carpets is one of the major reasons for the handicraft on the verge of extinction. “Hand-woven carpets are eco-friendly but cost more. The synthetic carpets, which are harmful to the nature but looks attractive, easy to wash and are relatively less expensive”, Mr. Arshad said. “This could be one of the reasons for a drop in the export orders for products”, he rues.
Unavailability of raw material and manpower are also major problems affecting the carpet industry. Earlier, wool, a raw material for carpet making, used to be available in Warangal and parts of Tamil Nadu. The manufacturers are presently constrained to procure the material from Rajasthan. Vijayalakshmi, a weaver, said the workers migrated to the alternative employments such as construction work for want of a fair deal. “If I work for eight hours in carpet making, I will earn only Rs 100 and a ‘tapi’ worker earns more than Rs 250”, she said.
