To help weavers who are in distress, the State government has decided to procure six lakh saris and distribute them among Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and nurses, Minister for Handlooms and Textiles and Minority Welfare S.B. Patil has said.
Addressing presspersons after chairing a progress review meeting at the Deputy Commissioner’s office premises in Dharwad on Tuesday, Mr. Patil said that the move was aimed at mitigating the suffering of weavers in distress, and also honouring COVID-19 warriors.
Mr. Patil said that because of the lockdown, weavers were unable to sell weaved products and the fear of the pandemic too had affected their business.
Hi-tech showrooms
The Minister said that the State government had taken a decision to open five hi-tech showrooms on the lines of Priyadarshini showrooms to help weavers sell their products directly. He said that the initiative would help in doing away with middlemen and bring producers and buyers on the same platform.
Elaborating on the other steps aimed at helping weavers, he said that those weavers who had repaid their loan amount, would get ₹ 1 lakh in their bank accounts. And, along with it, handloom and powerloom weavers would get ₹ 2,000 each, he said.
Polytechnics
On minority welfare, he said that efforts were on to set up one polytechnic in each one of the four revenue divisions in the State and start job-oriented courses there for youths from minority communities.
Mr. Patil said that as part of the efforts to bring the minority community to the mainstream, it was necessary that mainstream education, along with madarsa education, was extended to children and youths from the minority community. Accordingly, steps were being taken, he said.
In an earlier meeting, officials from the department gave details of the progress made in various segments.
Chairman of Karnataka Minority Development Corporation Mukhtar Pathan, Director of Minority Welfare Mehaboob Pasha, district officer Abdul Rasheed and Additional Deputy Commissioner Shivanand Karale and others were present.
