Rajanna Sircilla: Bathukamma sarees make weavers' lives much harder

Rajanna Sircilla: Weavers of Sircilla powerloom industry, who were said to have heaved a sigh of relief as the state government had placed orders to weave 1.05 crore Bathukamma sarees totalling to about 7 crore metres worth Rs 350 crore, have shut down their operations and have hit the road demanding that the government revise their wages.

The weavers, who had spun Bathukamma sarees in 22,000 out of 30,000 power looms in the district, said that they had suffered serious loss due to the manufacturing of these sarees.

TRS leaders and ministers always claim that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao launched the Bathukamma sarees scheme not only to gift sarees to Telangana women on the festive occasion of Dasara but also to provide better livelihood to weavers.

But the weavers allege that due to weaving of Bathukamma sarees with Dobi and Pinjarla designs last year they witnessed huge loss. Moreover, the workload is increasing with weaving of sarees with different designs.

Due to the increase of workload, production has come down and workers are not getting the expected wages. The officials are not responding to their appeals to increase the labour charges of weaving of Bathukamma sarees to the workers.

At least now, IT Minister K T Rama Rao must understand the problems of handloom owners and powerloom workers and must solve the problem immediately by increasing the labour charges to the workers. "Otherwise we will plan a 'Chalo Hyderabad' programme," they said.

A large number of workers and owners representing the Handloom Owners' Coordination Committee and Powerloom Workers' Union took out a rally from Kotha bus stand to Nethanna statue on Tuesday.

CITU leaders K Ramana, M Ajay, Ganesh, Ashok, Ravinder, Subhash, Anand, Raju, Prakash, Devadas, Ravi, Ramesh and Chandrakanth were among those who led the rally.