Date:26/05/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/05/26/stories/2005052615560500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Minister refutes Telugu Desam charge on weaver suicides

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: The Finance Minister, K. Rosaiah, has mentioned the handloom sector as the second priority of the Rajasekhara Reddy Government, saying the sector needs official support for survival.

At a press conference here on Wednesday, he described the allegation levelled by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regarding suicide by weavers in the State as "empty talk".

The Minister, however, offered to reply to this if the TDP leaders accepted as true, the numerous initiatives taken by the Congress Government in the past one year to ameliorate the lot of the weavers.

Report awaited

Mr. Rosaiah said the Government would come out with more measures for the handloom sector once it received the expert committee report, which had gone into different aspects of this sector. The report was expected in 15 days, he said.

As a policy, the Government would encourage weavers in a big way in producing livery required by different departments. For this, it was contemplating to ask the Finance Department to hold back at source, the funds required by these departments for purchase of livery so that they would compulsorily buy cloth from weavers.

The Minister listed out number of steps taken in the past one year for giving fresh lease of life to APCO. They included sanction of Rs. 10 crores towards its revolving fund for procurement of cloth from weavers, increase in sales turnover to Rs. 100 crores from Rs. 79 crores during 2004, in procurement to Rs. 43 crores from Rs. 33 crores and in wages allowed to weavers by 15 per cent. Looms in cooperative sector which gave gainful employment, had been increased to 4,237 from 2,500 earlier. Forty exhibitions were held for the year compared to 18 during the previous year.