Carrying their empty purse in small thamboolam bags, women in their late 40s and 50s walk towards a dilapidated shed adjacent to a room from where rattling sounds of handlooms emerge. The weavers daily visit a place inside the premises of Pondicherry Cooperative Handloom Society (Ponfab) at Muthialpet and sit with their spinning wheels lying on the broken floor, waiting for work.
It has been five years since they have had regular supply of yarns to spin at the Ponfab Society. “We come here every day hoping that we would get work to do. Since the government stopped purchasing saris and dhotis from society to give it free of cost to people during the festivals, there has not been enough work to do. We seldom get orders and the work might last a couple of weeks,” says 50-year-old Kalavathi.
K. Malarkodi said the women spinning the yarn used to earn at least ₹20 to ₹30 a day. “I have been working here for 25 years. We used to get at least ₹20 for spinning 10 boxes of yarn, if we work from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m,” she says. Except for two spinning wheels, the rest of the six were gathering dust.
Ms. Kalavathi said she started working in this society in 1994. “Although the orders started dwindling in the last five years, we have been struggling for the past two years without work. We are able to survive only because of the pension money that my husband gets,” she says.
Raw material supply
Out of the 20 handlooms, only 15 are functional. Of this, 10 are lying idle as only five weavers have work to do at present. Only 30 pit looms out of 84 are working now.
“Even the raw material supplied to weave bedsheets have drastically reduced over the years. Earlier, at least half of the bedsheets woven here were being exported to Germany.
There were more than four designs of bedsheets that we used to weave here. Now, we are getting orders only for one or two varieties. But now, only a van carries the products to Nagapattinam,” said V. Ezhumalai, a weaver.
“We have lost all the Jacquard weaving machines. We are not getting the raw material required to weave bedsheets. Last year, we got at least 256 m of yarn twice. When we question the government, they say that the loans have not been repaid and there is not enough money to buy raw material,” said Tamukarasi, who stated weaving at the age of 10.
R. Rajangam, secretary, CPI (M), said the government had been buying saris and dhotis for 15 years. However, for the past five years, it started making bulk purchase of saris and dhotis from private textile showrooms instead of buying from society.
“In the heydays, there were nearly 20,000 weavers working. The number has now reduced to 300. Over the last five years, the Social Welfare Department gradually reduced their purchase and in 2017 completely stopped buying from them. If the orders were given to these weavers and work streamlined, at least 5,000 families would benefit,” he said.
Minister for Social Welfare and Cooperation M. Kandasamy said a new plan had been worked out to revive the weaving sector.
