The Telangana government
will waive farmers’ loans up to Rs 1 lakh and loans taken by handloom weavers
from nationalised banks and district cooperative central banks as working
capital for production of handloom products from January 2014 to March 2017 are
included in the waiver scheme, state industries and commerce minister KT Rama
Rao said recently.
The state government will spend Rs 10.10 crore in
the scheme to free around 2,500 handloom weavers from debt, Rao told the state
legislatively assembly. Those how have repaid the loans will also get the
benefit.
The state government had allocated Rs 1,270 crore
to the handloom and powerloom industry in the 2017-18 budget to uplift the
sector neglected by earlier governments, Rao said. The sector was affected by
inadequate raw material supply and marketing, stiff competition from mills, and
obsolete technology, according to media reports from the state.
The objective behind this allocation was to
safeguard the sectors providing sustainable employment, the welfare of weavers,
and to provide alternate sources of livelihood to the poor unemployed, he added.
Source: The Times Of India, India Monday, 13 November 2017