UP Textile cluster

Finance Minister in his annual Budget for the year 2008-09 had announced for taking up two Mega Handloom Clusters at Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) and Sivasagar (Assam) for their integrated and holistic development. To take up these mega handloom clusters, “Comprehensive Handloom Cluster Development Scheme (CHCDS)” was introduced in November 2008. During 2009-10, as announced by the Finance Minister in his Budget speech, two more Mega Handloom Clusters have been taken up at Virudhunagar (Tamil Nadu) and Murshidabad (West Bengal). The scheme covers clearly identifiable geographical locations with at least 25,000 handlooms in which Government of India’s financial support would be upto Rs.70 crore.
These clusters will help the weavers by way of Technology up-gradation, Product Diversification, Raw Material Bank, Credit, Market Development, Forward & Backward Linkages, Human Resource & Skill Development, Social Security, Physical Infrastructure, Export & Marketing, Margin Money for working Capital, Corpus Fund for Yarn Deport etc. providing suitable workplace to enable them to produce quality products with improved productivity, participation in exhibitions, Common Facility Centres, Marketing Centres, supply of Yarn, Dyes & Chemicals, etc.
The Finance Minister in his budget speech (2011-12) has provided a financial package worth Rs.3000 crore related to handloom weaver’s cooperative societies in all over the country including Uttar Pradesh. This package is designed to address problems of indebtedness of handloom weavers of the country including U.P. This package benefits approximately 15000 weavers’ co-operative societies and 3 lakh weavers across the country including Uttar Pradesh by writing off their overdue loans & interest.