The Chirala-based National Federation of Handlooms and Handicrafts has sought the Union Government's immediate intervention to stop weavers’ suicide/starvation deaths during the coronavirus pandemic era.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, its leader M. Mohan Rao said that the unprecedented increase in the price of cotton and silk yarns during the testing times of COVID-19 had forced a majority of the weavers out of job.
The master weavers who had provided them jobs during the first wave of coronavirus pandemic, were now not in a position to give work to the weavers at the grassroots level during the second and third waves of the viral disease, Mr. Mohan Rao pointed out in the letter, a copy of which was released to the media here on Thursday.
As a result, they were either starving and in extreme cases were forced to end their lives, he said.
Raw material
He further pressed for a special economic package to provide hand-holding support to weavers including all raw material at subsidised rates so that they continue to produce the nature-friendly handloom fabric and contribute their mite in protecting the environment.
