The newly-appointed Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani is not the one to lie low for long. After having been eased out of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) where she had made ripples with such decisions as moves on the New Education Policy (NEP), The Minister is ready to give Indian indigenous textile industry the hitherto biggest push.
Irani would launch a comprehensive social media campaign, the theme of which has been titled as ‘Selfie-with-Handloom’, on August 1, with posts on social networking sites Twitter and Facebook. The campaign would culminate in the Prime Minister’s constituency Varanasi-home to millions of weavers- on August 7, the National Handloom Day
Irani wants, said sources, that people of the country click a selfie wearing one or the other handloom-made article and post it online on social networking sites.
“The central idea of this campaign is to make handloom articles cool and thus boost demand. Also, one of the major misconceptions is to equate handloom cloths with Khadi which is not true. On the other hand, several handloom articles such as Benarasi sarees and brocade have been adopted by such global and hep fashion brands as DKNY etc. We want to create allegiance of people towards handloom,” a source close to the minister said.
Irani would be unveiling a score of measures to boost the popularity of handloom-made cloth and other articles which have been adopted by high-end fashion brands and designers, but have failed to make a cut with the common man.
According to sources in the ministry, an extensive sale of handloom would be launched on August 7 across all the major e-commerce platforms. In all 19 such platforms that have dedicated handloom sections, including behemoths such as Amazon and Snapdeal, have been roped in.
Ministry sources also added that a buyer-seller meet too would be held on the National Handloom Day. The Delhi Crafts Council (DCC) and the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) apart from FICCI have pledged their support to the move, apart from several high-end designers the names of which the ministry sources declined to divulge before the formal launch of the campaign.
The campaign is also being supported by several state governments and individually by chief ministers. The Centre had this June announced a 6,000 crore package for the textile and apparel industry with an aim to create one crore jobs, a majority of them for women, in the next three years.
The Narendra Modi government has proposed several measures, including tax and production incentives along with flexibility in labour laws. India wants to capitalize on China slowly losing its long held position at the helm of the garment sector, something already being used by countries such as Bangladesh.
Source: India Today
