A study on the socio-economic conditions of handloom weavers in India

Commerce

The handloom industry occupies an eminent place in preserving the country's heritage and culture and, hence, plays a vital role in the economy of the country. Production in the handloom sector recorded a figure of 9,268 million sq. metres in the year 2020–21, which is about 59.27 percent over the production figure of 5,493 million sq. metres recorded in the year 2003–04. As an economic activity, the handloom sector occupies a place second only to agriculture in terms of employment. The sector, with about 31.45 lakh handlooms, provides employment to 35.23 lakh persons, of whom 72.29 percent are women and 13.84 percent belong to scheduled castes and 19.21 percent to scheduled tribes. However, this sector is faced with various problems, such as obsolete technology, an unorganised production system, low productivity, inadequate working capital, a conventional product range, and weak marketing links. Further, the handloom sector has always been a weak competitor against the powerloom and mill sectors. Against this backdrop, the present work attempts to make an in-depth study into the lives and miseries of handloom households. It covers households located in select prominent areas of this sector.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.