GUWAHATI: Weavers in the silk village of Sualkuchi in Assam’s Kamrup district will avail raw mulberry from a yarn bank at 20 per cent subsidy on the market rate, come Friday.
Assam chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal will inaugurate the mulberry yarn bank under Assam Apex Weavers and Artisans Co-op Fed Ltd (ARTFED) at the silk village on Friday.
“We are grateful to the Assam government as the master weavers will now be able to avail raw mulberry which comes from Bangalore at 20 per cent subsidy. However, we would have been happier if the subsidy was on the grade mill rate and not on the market rate, which includes transportation cost and allied charges. That way, our weavers would have benefitted more and the end product would cost less to the consumer,” Hiralal Kalita, a master weaver and secretary of the Sualkuchi Tat Silpa Unnayan Samiti, told The Shillong Times here on Thursday.
The absence of a government yarn bank had over the years left many weavers of the silk village at the mercy of private yarn merchants and middlemen who traded raw materials from outside at whopping rates.
There are over 5000 master weavers in the silk village and about 70 per cent of them are mulberry (locally called pat) weavers. The rest are muga, tasar and eri weavers.
“Now each mulberry weaver will get raw material amounting 7.5kg per month from the yarn bank at the subsidised rate. As it is, the National Handloom Development Corporation has over the years been providing 4kg per month to each weaver at 10 per cent subsidy on the mill grade rate,” Kalita said.
He however hoped that eri, muga and tasar banks would also be set by the government in the near future so that the cost of production and retail prices of Sualkuchi silk products in general comes down.