Handloom industry

RCG School of Infrastructure Design and Management
IIT Kharagpur
Semester 1: Autumn 2017-2018
RANA PRATAP SINGH
17ID60R17

HISTORY
• Varanasi is one of the oldest cities of the world and is known
for its religious importance & socio-economic ties with the
world. An important brocade weaving centre of the world with
roots in the Vedic period and achieving its peak during the
Mogul Empire.
• The earliest mentioned of the Banaras brocade and zari or
zari textiles of Banaras is found in the nineteenth century.. In
mughal period floral designs, and the ancient animal and bird
motifs were mainly used.
In the early period Zari brocade can be read in the
Vedas. The Veads mention them as “HIRANYA” or “gold
cloth".
 It has always been a big textile center of silk weaving

European visitors to India in the Mughal period visited Banaras
and recorded their impressions of the city's textile industry in
their work. during the second half of the 17th century,
recorded that gold and silver zari textiles from Banaras were
exported all over the world, which were “of the best quality”.
Silk brocades weaving started in banaras in the seventaanth
century and developed in excellence during during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Kautilya ’s “ Arthasastra" - written during the Mauryan period,
Panini's Ashtadhayi, the Jain Acharanga Sutra and Valmiki's
Ramayan make reference to the "Kauseya" or the present day
Brocade.

What is a loom?
Loom is a device used to weave clothes. The cloths which
are weaved by hand played looms are called handloom
products.
Based on the operation we classify them into two types
1. Handloom ->
2.powerloom->

Handloom vs Powerloom
Handloom
• 1.Manual operation.
• 2.less production.
• 3.Low investment
• 4. High quality
Powerloom
• 1.Operated and run by
electrical power.
• 2. More production.
• 3. High investment.
• 4. Low quality.

Major handloom industry location in banaras

Three principal type of weavers have existed in India at least since the 16th Century
Type of weaver
independent weavers who produce on their own account
and sell directly either to consumers (rarer) or to
merchants operating in local or long-distance markets
(more frequent)
dependent weavers working either under a master-
weaver or under merchant/finance capitalists
loomless weavers who work on a master’s loom,
either in their own home or at the master’s
workshop.

The Indian weaving industry consists of three major sectors
Mill (factory) sector which currently accounts for
around 4.3% of output.
By “mill” is meant large-scale composite spinning
and weaving textile mills.
Handloom sector, largest in terms of employment
but declining in share of output (now around 16%).
By “powerloom” is meant small-scale weaving
workshops, the majority operating with less than
ten workers, often (though not exclusively) with
second-hand or scrap looms obtained from the
mills, also obtaining yarn from mills and sending
fabric out for post-processing.
Powerloom sector accounting for nearly 80% of
output .

Share of mill handloom powerloom in
industry
 Over the post-Independence period, in part as
a result of State policy, mills have increasingly
restricted themselves to spinning activities
which supply yarn to the handlooms
 power looms (93% of working handlooms use
mill-spin yarn
 The share of handlooms in output declined
nearly ten percentage points (27% to 16%) in
the period 1995-2008
 mill share declined from 7.6% to 4.3%.
 The power loom sector has clearly gained at
the expense of both the mill and the handloom
sectors during this period, as well as over the
course of the 20th Century.
Share of mill handloom powerloom in cloth
production

classify firms into three types of employment relations:
 petty business which have one working owner and no
paid or unpaid workers.
 family firms which employ only unpaid workers,
 capitalist firms which employ at least one wage worker.
This is to be expected since 90% of firms according to
Census (1995) had 2 looms or less. But it may come as a
surprise that the majority of the power looms firms (64%)
also reported not employing any wage labor.

Predominant of family firms in weaving
From graph we can infer that
 family firms account for half
(51.17%) of total workers.
 majority of the weaving workforce
is not proletarianzed in the sense
of working in a direct capital-wage
labor relation.
 Capitalist firms account for around
43% of workers, which is
consistent 59% weavers to be self-
employed and 40% to be working
for wages.
Predominance of family firms in weaving

Homeworking women in Banaras
 Homeworkers are among the lowest paid workers
in the informal sector.
 80% of homeworkers are women.
 Women, who are at the bottom of the value chain,
perform unpaid labor largely in the form of
preparatory yarn work (reeling weft yarn, sizing of
warp).
 But seen as housewives working in “spare time.”
 Women weavers are rare in this region of the
country, the exception being the town of Mau,
where women used to weave on fly-shuttle pit
looms and now operate light powerlooms.

A woman’s work is (literally) never done
Average time-use pattern of 32 women over a 24-hour period starting at 5 a.m.
“Whatever time I get after cooking three meals, I spend on
embroidery.” said by one women

Hourly wages in Banaras
Type of work “Fancy”
Embroidery
“Aari”
Embroidery
Thread
cutting
Piece Rate 71.0 (47.8) 134.3 (57.0) 18.5 (3.7)
Hours per piece 18.8 (12.9) 24.6 (9.0) 3.8 (1.6)
Hourly Wage (Rs.) 4.2 (1.4) 5.6 (1.8) 5.0 (1.6)
Hourly Wage (PPP-
adjusted $)
0.17 0.22 0.20
N 58 21 14
Women spend a full working day of around eight hours on paid work
and get an hourly wage of Rs. 5 ( 2010 nominal value).

Organization of the Banaras weaving industry
 Own-workers as well as master weavers sell
finished products to merchants or traders in
the wholesale market which is located in the
city center.
 own-workers who own their looms and
produce for direct sale on the wholesale
market in Banaras.
 nearly 90% of total production is sold in the
city itself.
 Any stoppages due to maintenance or
breakage are also the job-worker’s
responsibility as is the maintenance and
repair of the equipment.
 The job-worker returns the finished set of
saris (or dress material) to the master-
weaver and is paid the previously agreed
piece-rate.
 For their part, masters bear the risk of the
market and keep abreast of the changing
market trends.
Organization of the Banaras weaving
industry, showing the location of
women(red), Ansari men(orange), Hindu
bania (trading caste) men (blue)

Role of master weaver in the Banaras weaving industry
the role of the master weaver
 bringing different types of artisans
together in order to make the final
product.
 The master-weaver purchases yarn and
gets it dyed.
 He also gets designs made and Jacquard
boards cut for mounting on the loom.
 A job-worker typically goes to the
master-weaver’s house to collect the
yarn and design boards.

Capturing of value
Factor Cost (Rs.)
Raw mat 22.5
Labor (incl.
electricity, space)
20
Wholesale price
(10% markup)
46.75
Local Retail price 200
A Banarasi Scarf Value Chain
 disagreement over the weaver’s
share it seems uncontroversial
that profit rates are the highest
for retailers.
 but retail turnovers are much
lower than wholesale turnovers.

Problem facing Surplus Labour
 In an economy with surplus labour even skilled workers may earn low wages
due to low bargaining power.
 When productivity increases piece wages adjust to keep hourly wages
constant.
 In Banaras powerlooms are over ten times more productive than
handlooms but hourly wages in both are almost the same.
 One question that arises is, how far are such low wages a result of the
recent recession in the industry and the effect of competition from
machine-made fabric from Surat, China etc.

Why handloom textiles lost its glory?
 Before the start of industrial revolution weaver have license to weave
22 different kinds of garments.
 With the advent of industrial revolution power came into existence.
 People find easy to weave cloths on powerloom as there is
involvement of manual operation.
 With this Indian government restricted it to 7 types.
 Lungi, towels,blankets, bedsheets, sarees, chaddars, shawls etc.
 The cost of ingredients like dyes, yarn thread, equipments got hike.
 proper steps not taken by government to encourage them. Like
subsidies, weaver's I.D card.
 Lack of intellectual property rights makes it difficult for producers to
prevent imitation or to exclude others.

Why we should bring back the glory of handloom industry?
 1.It is not an occupation but it is an art.
 2. It is handcraft.
 3.Intellectual property.
 Ex..->We come across big hoarding that written on it. Kanchipuram saree,
benaras saree, pochampally saree's available ,but no where it is written that
powerloom saree's are available.
 This show how desire to buy and demand for it.
 It is the 2nd largest industry after agriculture.( it is the livelihood of 13 lacks
people in India.

How to restore the glory of ancient art?
 Creating an open market like farmers.
 By loans and subsidies
 By creating handloom clusters and textile parks.
 By associating handlooms with N.I.F.T(National institute of Fashion
Technology) for various fashion designs.
 By giving special training in the field of designing textiles. We have
IIHT in Varanasi, odissa, chattisgarh,Karnataka ,Kerala, Rajasthan.

Initiatives taken by central or state government to
restore the glory of ancient art.
As technology progress, we should not forget our roots.
1.central government declared 7th august as national handloom day.
2.Telangna government initiative by sanctioning a india's biggest textile
park to warrangal near hanumakonda.(2000-3000 acres)
3.Previously we can see those parks in solapur, tirupur, Surat.
4. Telangana government passed a rule that all government official should
wear handloom fabrics on every Monday.

Conclusion
Handloom or the hand woven textile industry is now facing many challenges because
of the globalisation and rapid technological developments. The handloom products
are now being imitated on powerlooms at much lower price so there is a need to
strengthen this sector by making quality products & make market demand of those
products.

References
May 2011 yojana mazine
Article-The rise and fall of the Banarasi handloom sari Publication info: Mint ; New Delhi [New
Delhi]01 Dec 2016.
Thesis-KNOWLEDGE, GENDER, AND PRODUCTION RELATIONS IN INDIA’S INFORMAL ECONOMY
A Dissertation Presented by AMIT BASOLE UMI Number: 3498329

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