India's Second Handloom Park to be setup at Bargarh

Courtesy:- TOI

A handloom park will be set up in Bargarh district to teach weaving to people of non-weavers community. This is being done keeping in view the fading number of skilled weavers.

The upcoming Sambalpuri Ikat Handloom Park at Katapali village within Barpali block, would be the second handlooms park in the country and in Asia, the first one being at Kochampalli near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh.

Surendra Meher, president of the park, said few members of the weavers' community are sticking to their age-old profession. This may lead to a situation when no weavers will be left. To tide over the situation, the proposed park intends to impart skills to all willing persons. At present, the Bhulias (Meher) is the dominant weavers community in Bargarh, the epicentre of the world famous Sambalpuri saree.

The park, coming up in public-private partnership mode, has already acquired over 10 acres of land against a requirement of 25 acre. The park will have 2,000 looms and employ 3,000 workers.

The park has been registered as a society with 100 members, including 45 national awardees and 55 other master weavers. The members have pulled in a working capital of Rs 41,000 each. While the society is required to arrange land on its own, the Centre and state government will share other components of the Rs 70-crore project.

An inter-governmental panel has been constituted to work on the details of the project. Secretary textiles and handlooms, Arti Ahuja, said the project is on the fast track and would be commissioned soon. She, however, declined to set a deadline for commissioning of the park "since multiple stakeholders were involved."

Besides training the weavers on tie and dye processing, production, and finishing of the products, the captive looms in the project will help them produce textiles as per market demands, Ahuja said.

According to the Handloom Census 2009 of the Government of India, Bargarh has the biggest handloom cluster in the state. There are 35,000 weavers and allied textile workers and 12,500 looms in the district. The Bargarh handloom cluster sprawls across Bargarh, Barpali, Bheden, Bhatli, Attabira, Bijepur, Padampur and Sohela blocks where the artisans weave cotton sarees of tie-dye art, lungis and napkins. The demand for the saree is very high because of the unique tie-and-dye method, protecting the glaze for years.

Hope the Handloom Park will not become a distant dream like the Balangir Medical College !!!..People of KOSAL are always being cheated by the people in power at Bhubaneswar...When they can set up so many higher educational institutions, tech park etc as fully Govt. enterprises...Then why the biased Orissa govt always recommend a private-public enterprise in KOSAL region.....They know it very well that our region is so poor that it hardly attracts private investment particularly in Medical and Handloom, they why they r not trying for a fully govt supported handloom park....Anyhow let's wait and watch...How many more years it will take for this park to become reality ???????