Minister for industries and commerce, Chander Parkash yesterday inaugurated a Handloom Cluster Development Project at Chenani in Jammu & Kashmir, which has been taken up under the comprehensive Handloom Development Scheme of National Handloom Development Programme.
This is first such project for Jammu & Kashmir, sanctioned by textile ministry to empower handloom weavers and build their capacity to enhance competitiveness of their products in the domestic and international market.
The project will facilitate collectivization of handloom weavers and provide assistance for procurement, production, marketing and other support activities to promote sustainable growth and diversification.
Chander Parkash also distributed cheques of an amount of eight thousand each among ten beneficiaries for setting up looms to revive their traditional livelihood sources.
The minister said that the government is committed to uplift the economic condition of the people related to handloom industry. He directed the concerned departments to organize more and more awareness camps in rural areas in order to aware the people about various welfare schemes so that they avail maximum benefits from these schemes.
Minister of state for finance and information technology, Pawan Kumar Gupta appreciating the efforts of handloom development department for organizing such a programme at Chenani urged the people to come forward and avail maximum benefits from the centrally sponsored schemes and raise their economic standard.