Telangana to celebrate textile heritage, honour weavers on National Handloom Day on August 7

Telangana government will mark National Handloom Day on Thursday with State-wide celebrations that include honouring weavers, holding exhibitions and highlighting welfare measures aimed at supporting handloom and powerloom workers.

The Sri Konda Laxman Bapuji Awards will be presented to selected weavers and designers. Events such as handloom exhibitions, public meetings with weaving communities and district-level programmes will be held.

According to officials, the celebrations are part of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy and Handlooms and Textiles Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao’s ongoing efforts to protect the State’s weaving tradition and secure livelihoods. Telangana has, so far, geo-tagged 23,046 handlooms and 43,768 powerlooms, and has 393 handloom weavers’ cooperative societies and 73 powerloom societies.

Several schemes for the welfare of weavers are under implementation. Under the Telangana Chenetha Abhayahastham scheme, the Nethanna Podhupu thrift fund helps handloom workers save part of their income while the government contributes twice that amount. In 2024-25, a total amount of ₹90 crore was spent to support 36,133 weavers. In 2025-26, around ₹7.19 crore has been released to 36,731 beneficiaries so far.

The same thrift fund scheme is also available to powerloom weavers. Last year, it supported 11,698 people with ₹34.07 crore. This year, the government has set a target to support 15,000 weavers with ₹30 crore.

Under the Telangana Nethanna Bhadratha scheme, the families of deceased weavers and ancillary workers are provided ₹5 lakh. In 2024-25, a total of ₹3.75 crore was disbursed to 36,337 families. A budget of ₹15 crore has been allocated for 2025-26.

A loan waiver scheme for handloom weavers was announced in March. With a budget of ₹33 crore, it applies to loans taken between April 2017 and March 2024, up to a maximum of ₹1 lakh per weaver. This is expected to help them access fresh loans for work.

To support wages, the Telangana Nethannaku Barosa scheme provides up to ₹18,000 per year to weavers and ₹6,000 to ancillary workers. Now, ₹12.20 crore has been sanctioned for the current financial year.

The Pavala Vaddi scheme reduces interest burdens on weavers’ cooperative societies. In 2024-25, nearly ₹1.09 crore was spent and 60 societies benefitted.

As part of efforts to boost marketing, the Telangana State Handloom Weavers Co-operative Society (TGSCO) organised two exhibitions in 2024-25 with ₹59 lakh. For 2025-26, one national-level expo and two special expos have been planned with a total budget of ₹1.05 crore.

Sales through TGSCO’s 32 showrooms increased from ₹3.17 crore in the April-June quarter of 2024-25 to ₹4.39 crore in the same period this year.

In March last year, the government issued orders requiring all departments and agencies to procure cloth from TGSCO. This has resulted in purchase orders worth ₹587.26 crore so far in 2025-26.

The government has also decided to supply two sarees per year free of cost to 65 lakh women from Indira Mahila Shakthi self-help groups. For the first round, 4.63 crore metres of cloth is being produced by 131 cooperative societies and 56 small-scale units.

A yarn depot is being set up at Vemulawada in Rajanna Siricilla district to support powerloom production. Moreover, ₹50 crore has been sanctioned as corpus and 2,253 metric tonnes of yarn have already been supplied.

Last year, the State established the Konda Laxman Bapuji Indian Institute of Handloom Technology in Hyderabad. Sixty students will be enrolled annually for a three-year diploma course in Handlooms and Textile Technology.

The government has said it aims to continue supporting the weaving community through focused schemes and policies that provide financial stability, create employment and preserve traditional craftsmanship.