National Handloom Day holds great significance of skill development, education and training in the handloom and textile industry. This sector has unique significance in promoting traditional weaving skills, the art and craft that has been passed on from generations to rich cultural heritage of India. On this occasion we have put together highly informative stories from our archives that talk about the need for education, skill-based training and awareness about entrepreneurship opportunities. Let’s read on to know more about what the experts, the entrepreneurs and the government has to say!
The Union Ministry for Textiles launched an e-platform in 2016 for ISDS and a helpline for helping handloom weavers. Highlights of the platform:
- Online dashboard or an e-platform for Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS) hosted on the NIC Cloud
- Bunkar Mitra – a helpline for handholding of Handloom weavers  …..Read more
“India’s handloom industry is deeply rooted in the sociocultural traditions with a rich heritage of skills and talent that needs to be preserved, perpetuated and promoted. In this Skill Talk, Aditi Shah Aman, Designer and Social-Eco Entrepreneur, and co-founder at The Rare Earth, stresses upon the need to have a systematic approach to skilling and training weavers who have traditionally inherited a wealth of abilities but find it difficult to leverage them in the contemporary market scenario. The challenge is to make this sector economically viable and aspirational for the next generation of young handloom weavers, and create the requisite ecosystem for the handlooms to flourish…” Read more
“This is a rather unique sector because the actual skill gaps are more in terms of marketing and selling the products than learning the craft. And, most of the industry operates through co-operatives and micro enterprises that need guidance and handholding to scale up and sustain their business. Hence, the need of the hour is to equip the weavers and the craftspersons with top 3 skills that make them tech-savvy entrepreneurs who can blend tradition and fashion with scalable business models –Gayathri Vasudevan, CEO, LabourNet…” Read more
“When it comes to handicrafts and handloom there is hardly any part of India which is not known for it’s specially crafted and weaved items. This is a vast and versatile industry. Be it the silk from Assam or the cotton from Bengal, the Pashmina from Kashmir or the Kanjeevaram from South India they all have their own story to tell and have their place in the market. No matter how much technology advances the skill in the hands of people has its own charm. There is a lot of tradition that has been passed on through generations which is no less than the magic of skilled hands.This industry provides employment for 13000000 artists.” An episode on Handloom and Handicraft from Hunnarbaaz. Read more
“We have trained more than 3000 people in the National Backward Class Finance Development Corporation (NBCFDC) as workers for textile mill sector weavers, where we’ve covered the RPL as well as the Fresher Training. In 2016, we’ve trained close to 34000 people in textile mill sector and this year we plan to train 50000 under RPL (PMKVY2) in the handloom sector, for which we are also the Project Implementation Agency (PIA). We have signed an MoU with Arni Silk Park in Tamil Nadu, as our RPL partner for upskilling in design, quality and productivity. So far, we’ve developed total 68 job roles out of which 9 are for handloom sector…” Dr J.V. Rao , CEO, Textile Sector Skill Council (TSC)  Read more
