Bathukamma sarees: 24 designs in 10 colours this time

Hyderabad: The annual programme of distribution of one crore Bathukamma sarees in the state would begin from Thursday. This year sarees with 24 different designs in ten colours have been procured from the weavers by the Textile department.

According to officials, 92 lakh sarees would be of 6 metres and the remaining 8 lakh sarees will be 9 metres. These sarees will be of 240 types thread bordered and 100 per cent polyester filament yarn sarees.

The Telangana government has spent Rs 339.73 crore for the Bathukamma sarees.

This initiative was launched by the state government in 2017 as a token gift to women of the state.

The Textiles department, which has been coordinating with all the district collectors, has completed the arrangements for distribution of the sarees.

Minister for Textiles K T Rama Rao said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao took up several programmes to support weavers who were in distress because of unemployment before 2014. This programme provides yearlong employment to the weavers. He demanded that the Centre withdraw GST on textiles as it was putting burden on weavers.

Every woman in the State who has a Food Security Card will get the Bathukamma saree. Nearly 5.81 crore sarees were distributed from the time the project was launched to date, the minister said.