Demand to remove all taxes including GST on handloom sector

Chirala: The traditional handloom weavers, who are already reeling under crisis for livelihood, demand the Union government to abolish the GST and other taxes on clothes and raw material.

The weavers' leaders at All India Handloom Rights Forum wrote another letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman explaining the hardships of the handloom weavers and the burden they are experiencing with the GST and other taxes.

Due to the domination of the mechanised handloom industry, the traditional handloom weavers are losing their work gradually for the last few years. As the demand is reducing over time, the master weavers are not revising the wages as per the schedule and continuing the meagre salaries even though the prices of commodities are skyrocketing. The Covid pandemic worsened the condition of these weavers and they are forced to leave the handloom pits to work as casual labour at hotels, workshops, factories and construction sites. Those, who are continuing in the profession, are weaving for lower wages compared with the pre-Covid times.

Avvaru Venkateswarlu, a handloom weaver at Eepurupalem, said that they are receiving nearly 30 per cent less of wages when compared to the wages they received in 2019. He said that the master weavers reduced the work assigned to them by almost 20 to 30 per cent as the demand for the handloom cloth dropped in the market, and the investment of raw materials also increased. He said that their lives would become further miserable with the government imposing the GST on the handloom cloth.

The All India Handloom Rights Forum (AIHRF) wrote a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman explaining the ordeals of the handloom weavers and the adversities of the taxes on the poor families at the end.

AIHRF leader Bandaru Jwala Narasimham explained in the letter that lakhs of handloom weavers in the country left their profession and became workers in other fields, as they are not receiving enough work in the handloom sector. He said that some of the weavers committed suicide unable to see their families starve when the masters reduced work due to the imposition of GST and other taxes on the handloom sector and the raw materials by the union government.

Jwala explained that the government is levying five per cent of tax on hank yarn, 18 per cent on the chemicals, and colours and four per cent on the cloths of value more than Rs 5000 forcing the master weavers to increase the investment by reducing the already meagre profits, thus affecting the wages of the poor weavers. He demanded the minister to support the traditional handloom sector by revoking the GST and waiving the taxes on raw materials.