When nine weavers committed suicide in Sircilla, as a Parliament member Mr KCR wrote a letter to the then chief minister to come to the rescue of weavers. When the Centre failed to respond, he gave rupees fifty lakhs to the families, said minister Mr KTR.
Being aware of the problems of weavers in the state, Mr KCR soon after the formation of separate Telangana enhanced the budget from rupees seventy crores to rupees Twelve hundred crores. Mr KTR was speaking at Weavers community meeting. He said in the last eight years, the ruling TRS government spent rupees five thousand seventy-five crore. However, in the past seventy years, the successive governments did not even spend ten per cent of it.
Soon after the formation of the state, chief minister Mr KCR called the weavers for a meeting and asked about their problems such as whether they were getting any subsidy. He immediately announced a forty per cent subsidy on yarn for them. During the corona pandemic, the state government released rupees one hundred crores to benefit twenty-six thousand weavers.
Insurance of rupees five lakh was introduced in the name of Nethannaku Bheema scheme. So far four thousand weavers are being covered and if anybody is left over, they may also apply for it. “This is the government of deeds not words,” Mr KTR pointed out.
However, the Central government has been doing the reverse hurting the handloom weavers by scrapping the handloom board, Mahatma Bhunkar Yojana, the Weaver thrift scheme, and so on. Mr Modi even imposed GST on weavers compounding their problems.
The minister appealed to the weavers not to believe in what BJP leaders were saying else they would be in trouble beyond salvage. They should strengthen the hands of TRS, and CM KCR who is determined to save the textile sector in the state, he added.
By Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao