By TCN News,
New Delhi: With funds from the Central Government, so far, four mega handloom clusters have been set up at Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), Sivasagar (Assam), Virudhunagar (Tamilnadu) and Murshidabad (West Bengal). These clusters were announced in the Budget for 2008-09 and 2009-10.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Textiles, Panabaaka Lakshmi in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
The Minister further stated that each mega handloom cluster has at least 25,000 handlooms and will be developed in a time period of 5 years with an upper Central Government share of Rs.70 crore.
Two handloom clusters at Chirala and Madhvaram in Andhra Pradesh, each covering about 5000 handlooms have been taken up in 2006-07 for their integrated and holistic development and are under implementation. In addition, 52 handloom clusters, each covering 300-500 handlooms have been taken up in the State of Andhra Pradesh under the Integrated Handlooms Development Scheme during the period 2007-08 to 2010-11(as on date). Further, 262 Group Approach Projects have been taken up in the same state from 2008-09 to 2010-11, she informed.