Thousands of handloom units facing closure

Thousands of handloom units in the country are facing closure for want of cotton, dyes and chemicals at fair price, shortage of capital and absence of modern cloth processing centres, industry insiders said.

They said around 1,92,000 handloom units out of 0.5 million in the country have closed down and many others are on the verge of closure due to the aforesaid reasons.

According to them, handloom is the second largest labour intensive sector for rural employment after agriculture. Over 1.5 million people are involved with the sector directly or indirectly.

Tangail Secondary Weavers' Samity former president Habibur Rahman, has slammed the government for not taking any realistic step to save the weavers from their current plight.

"There is none in the country to listen to our sufferings," Mr Rahman told the FE adding that, "we have requested the government several times to ensure cotton, dyes and chemicals at fair price for the weavers or withdraw taxes on import of those, but we are yet to receive any response (from the government)."

According to the National Board of Revenue (NBR), importers of cotton and dyes and chemicals have to pay 15 per cent duties.

A Bangladesh Handloom Board (BHB) high official also urged the government to ensure a sufficient amount of loans for the poor weavers so that they can procure ingredients of their products and survive.

The BHB official expressed his dismay saying, "Whatever financial support the handloom owners are getting is not at all useful as it is paltry compared to the need."

According to BHB sources, the government in 1998 sanctioned Tk 500 million to disburse at the rate of Tk 12,000 per head among weavers as loan.

But weavers alleged that the amount does not meet their minimum requirement, which has forced them to shut down handlooms and to turn to other professions.

"The government should provide at least Tk 50,000 as loan to each of the handloom owners," he added.

The BHB high official said that his office in 2009 had proposed to the ministry of finance to approve Tk 1.05 billion for the handloom sector, but the ministry refused to approve the fund.

He, however, informed that they have taken a set of initiatives to save the weavers and alleviate the grim situation prevailing in the sector through providing different modern facilities.

"The board has initiated the BMRE (balance, modernise, rehabilitate and expand) of the cloth processing centre (CPC) in Narsingdi at a cost of Tk 297.21million," he added.

"Besides, the board also initiated to establish another three different types of service centres at a cost of Tk 460.52 million.

"One of them is a Service Facility Centre (SFC) in Narsingdi and the other two are Textile Facility Centres (TFCs) in Sahajadpur and Kalihati," he added.

According to BHB sources, through these centres, the board would provide washing, dyeing, calendaring, printing, finishing and some other facilities to the weavers.

The BHB high official expressing his hope said, "After completion of the initiatives, the handloom sector of the country would eye a big change."