CM K Palaniswami takes up cause of handloom societies

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking removal of two clauses introduced recently in the National Handloom Development Programme for societies to avail marketing incentives. In the letter, Palaniswami said the clauses specified that the turnover of Handloom Weavers Co-operative Societies should not be more than '30 lakh and can avail incentives only for a three-year period.

In the earlier scheme, there was neither any time limit nor sales turnover as eligibility criteria, making it easier for the societies to avail the incentives, Palaniswami said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Chief Minister said only 285 societies consisting of 53,140 weavers in Tamil Nadu would become eligible, as against 868 societies which consist of 2.69 lakh weavers for the incentives under the new initiative.

On the other clause that the societies’ can avail incentives only if the turnover is up to '30 lakh, he said, it would lead to affect the sales of handloom.

“There will not only be any cash flow in the societies, continuous employment would also be affected,” he said, holding that co-operative societies depend ‘heavily’ on the marketing incentives. “Due to the new clauses there would be accumulation of stock and loss of working capital,” he said.

The co-operative societies struggle “very hard” due to impact of Goods and Services Tax and it is imperative that they get continuous support to liquidate the stocks, he said.

He requested Modi to remove the '30 lakh turnover cap on societies and also the three-year time limit, so as to extend the benefit of marketing incentive to the entire handloom sector.