Telangana urges leaders to wear handloom to ‘bring back glory’ of weavers

Chief minister of Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao’s son KT Rama Rao has urged officials, public representatives and students of all state-run educational institutions to wear handloom clothes at least once a week.

Telangana minister for information technology and industries KT Rama Rao has urged officials, public representatives and students of all state-run educational institutions to wear handloom clothes at least once a week.

Chief minister of Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao’s son KT Rama Rao has urged officials, public representatives and students of all state-run educational institutions to wear handloom clothes at least once a week.(PTI)

Rao, the son of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, represents Siricilla constituency in newly-formed Rajanna Siricilla district popular for its handloom weaving sector. The district is also infamous for a large number of suicides by weavers.

KTR, as he is popularly known, has been meeting MLAs of all political parties for the last couple of days during the ongoing winter session of the state assembly and presenting them a bag of handloom clothes, requesting them to promote the handloom sector.

Apart from the chief minister and opposition party leaders, KTR has also gifted the bags to Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary, Legislative Council chairperson K Swamy Goud as well as state ministers.

He said he requested each public representative to wear the handloom clothes at least once a week so that handloom weavers get sufficient work and they can be brought out from distress. A similar request has been made to the officials of various departments in the state government.

KTR has also written to all the MPs, MLCs and public representatives of various local bodies to encourage the handloom sector by wearing handloom clothes compulsorily.

“Our weavers of Pochampally, Gadwal, Narayanpet and Siricilla were once known across the country for their skill and quality of handloom clothes. They are all now in distress. Let us all bring back glory to their produce and popularise our culture,” the minister said in his letter.

The clothes, produced by weavers, are marketed by Telangana State Handloom Cooperative Society (TSCO). KTR said the society had launched a scheme called “Chenetha Lakshmi” under which a member would get handloom fabric worth Rs 14,400 if he pays a membership fee of Rs 1,000 per month for nine months.

While requesting the common public to buy handloom clothes and encourage the weavers, KTR said TSCO products would be sold online through Amazon, Flipkart and other leading online stores apart from TSCO’s website.

The minister added that Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has already declared that all its employees would wear handloom clothes on Grievances Day every Monday to promote handloom clothes.