National Handloom Week

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Held from 7th April - 14th April 2022

Handloom is a device made up of wooden vertical-shaft looms, with the heddles fixed in place in the shaft. The warp threads pass alternately through a heddle and through a space between the heddles (the shed), so that raising the shaft raises half the threads (those passing through the heddles), and lowering the shaft lowers the same threads, the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place. The Handloom industry is a part of the Textile industry. The Textile industry occupies a unique place India. One of the earliest to come into existence in India, it accounts for 14% of the total Industrial production, contributes to nearly 30% of the total exports and is the second largest employment generator after agriculture.

India's textile sector comprises four important segments:

  • Modern textile mills.
  • Independent Power looms.
  • Handlooms.
  • Garments.

Handloom products include handloom and silk sarees, garments, gamchas, shawls, stoles, scarves, dupattas, other readymades, home furnishings including bedsheets and covers, fabrics, carpets, durries, rugs and mats, kitchen linen, hand towels and napkins etc. Handloom week is organised from December 21-27 to highlight a range of handloom products developed by handloom clusters under the Integrated Handloom Cluster Development Scheme of the Ministry of Textiles. The most important stimulus for the handloom sector is marketing. To achiece this purpose agencies like EDI, ACASH, NHDC, Weavers Service Centres, Ministry of Textiles, Office of the Development Commissioner (Handlooms) and Textiles Committee, State Handloom Development Corporations and Federation put up their Expos throughout the country.

Events - Various awareness programmes, buyer-sellers meet, dyeing & design workshop, health camps etc. are held. Incentives are also offered for handloom and handicraft sector. Handicrafts Week is generally celebrated through a slew of expos being conducted in Delhi, Chennai, Coimbatore, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Jaipur, Mumbai, Bhillai, Dehradun, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bangalore, Puri, Kannur, Tirupathi, Dimapur, Sibsagar, Bhopal, Chandigarh and Patna. The Handloom expos exhibit live demostration of the weaving on handloom, cloth printing and computer aided textile designing. Weavers from Varanasi, Bargarh, Chanderi, Burdwan, Barabanki, Binjore and Gwalior also exhibited the skills in form of saris, stoles, scarves, shawls, home furnishing items, etc. Weavers from all parts of the country display their creations in cotton, silk (eri, muga, tassar, mulberry) other natural blends and get direct opportunity to interact with buyers from within India and abroad.These products are tagged with Handloom Mark indicating that they are made by hand looms and not powerlooms, and are genuine. During 2009, the President of India Smt Pratibha Devisingh Patil had released a set of four special postage stamps on Traditional Indian Textiles at Rashtrapati Bhavan. These stamps denote four stamps of denomination worth Rs. 5/- each depicts Varanasi Brocade, Kanchipuram Silk, Kalamkari and Apa Tani Weaves, the famed traditional Indian handloom textiles.

Holiday Status - It is not a public holiday.