Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said a multi-pronged strategy was needed for the development of Padmashali (weavers) community.
At a meeting with the weavers’ community led by Sangareddy legislator Chinta Prabhakar, Telangana State Women’s Cooperative Finance Corporation Gundu Sudharani, and Telangana Padmashali Sangham president G. Yadagiri, he announced allotment of 2.5 acres of land in the city for construction of Padmashali Bhavan and also sanctioned a financial assistance of ₹5 crore for the purpose.
Stating that the government had been providing necessary encouragement to those who were continuing in the weaving profession, Mr. Rao said showing alternative employment opportunities to those who left the profession was a challenge.
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He suggested that the community organise and create a welfare fund and announced a donation of ₹50 lakh as the first contribution on behalf of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
He asked the community leaders to contribute liberally to the welfare fund.
The Chief Minister pointed out that emergence of power looms and cloth mills had resulted in loss of employment to hand loom weavers but it was a reality to live with. He blamed the previous governments for not taking care of welfare of weavers and, in the absence of lternative employment opportunities, they had suffered financial problems leading to suicides. During the movement for statehood, TRS as a party had created a corpus with ₹50 lakh to help weavers’ families in distress, he said.
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The State government was buying clothes from hand loom and power loom weavers for distributing sarees during Bathukamma, Ramzan and Christmas and, to address the marketing problem to a large extent, procured from them fabric required for other needs of the government such as school uniforms.
Padmashali Sangham working president M. Babu Rao, general secretary G. Venkateshwarlu, treasurer A. Venkateshwarlu, former chairman of APCO Mandala Sriramulu and several others attended the meeting.