Textile ministry pact with firms to procure products directly from weavers

The Union textile ministry Monday signed agreements with leading clothing/textile players like Raymond, Welspun, Titan, Reliance Retail and the Sachin Tendulkar-promoted True Blue, under which these companies will procure more from the weavers directly. Textile minister Smriti Irani said the initiative aims at exploring the synergy between culture and textiles and the initiative will be extended to the rest of the country.

She was addressing an outreach programme called the Artisan Speak where these agreements were signed. All our schematic assistance including the provision of loans, skilling, provision of yarns etc are aimed at lowering the cost of production and enhance the income of weavers," textile secretary Raghavendra Singh said. He said the ministry is coming with QR coding post registration and pre-registration of all its weavers for geographical indication tags.