Following unprecedented crisis in money circulation, the weavers’ cooperative societies and their members running home-based cottage units are now faced with the challenging task of selling their products and also getting raw material from far-off places such as Coimbatore and Surat.
As per an estimate, the number of affected families, spread across Venkatagiri, Buchireddypalem, Mannar Poluru, Kovur, Bangarupeta and other places, is about 30,000. These families, who get Rs. 300 per person for a day’s work, are now struggling to find work in the face of breakdown in the overall transactions in the sale of their products.
Some of these weavers get just Rs. 200 per day considering the fact that they work as assistants at the looms and are considered ‘dependent workers.’ They are also suffering because of the sudden drop in demand.
“Our livelihood will be at stake if the currency crisis continues. Most of our community members do not know any other work. The government should immediately restore supply of low-value cash notes in the market,” said K. Subrahmanyam, a weaver, who works on his own loom at his house at Buchireddypalem near here.
The major impact of demonetisation has been on the sale of weavers’ products to other parts of the country and also the export of high-cost products mostly different varieties of silk saris and so on.
Cash-based transactions
Almost all the weavers, including their cooperative societies, have known traditionally only cash-based transactions as 80 per cent of this cottage industry is located in rural areas.
Padidam Chenchala Rao, president of Venkateswara Weavers’ Cooperative Society, Venkatagiri town, told The Hindu that they were now starting to realise the need for taking ‘swiping machines’ and run their transactions in the cashless mode.
‘Our livelihood will
be at stake if the low-value
currency crisis continues’
