Collector appoints special officers to oversee production

With less than two weeks for the distribution of Bathukamma sarees to commence, production work in Sircilla has picked up pace with powerlooms operating round-the-clock to meet the target.

In a bid to provide regular employment to powerloom weavers of Sircilla, the State government had placed orders for 90 lakh Bathukamma sarees and blouses measuring 6 crore metres of fabric at a cost of ₹280 crore. A total of 16,000 weavers are working on 20,000 powerlooms to produce the sarees.

Last year, the weavers could not achieve the targeted production of sarees, forcing the State government authorities to purchase sarees from Surat, Gujarat. However, following the supply of poor quality of sarees, the government faced the wrath of womenfolk. So, this time, it has taken up saree production as a prestige issue.

Collector P. Venkatarama Reddy is overseeing the daily production and has appointed 10 district officials as special officers with another 77 officials inspecting the powerloom units. So far, 4.21 crore metres (74 lakh sarees) have been woven.

Officials are ensuring that 12 lakh metres are woven on a daily average. They have also dispatched 34 lakh sarees to various districts for the distribution among beneficiaries from October 12. The weavers are producing two varieties of sarees in 80 colours — one for the elderly and the other for younger women.

Officials have also decided to conduct exhibitions by displaying the 80 colours of Bathukamma sarees from October 2 in Rajanna-Sircilla, Karimnagar, Jagtial, Siddipet, Nizamabad, Peddapalli, Kamareddy and other districts.

Mr. Reddy said the production of sarees has gathered considerable pace following supervision by special officers and added that the production of fabric has increased from 7 lakh metres to 12 lakh metres a day.

The Collector exuded confidence that the target would be achieved in time.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Telangana / by K.M. Dayashankar / Rajanna-Sircilla, October 01st, 2018