Home > Fabrics & Garments > Story

Vajpayee for action plan for carpet industry

PTI - New Delhi

The prime minister Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee has proposed an action plan to achieve quantum growth in carpet making and offered to set up a secretariat of the World Forum of Handmade Carpets in the country.

“I would like the ministry of textiles along with others to prepare a time-bound action plan to achieve a quantum growth in India’s handmade carpet industry, with a specific focus on increasing employment,” Mr Vajpayee said inaugurating the first World Conference on Handmade Carpets. He said India would be happy to offer space and other such facilities to house the secretariat of the World Forum for Handmade Carpets proposed by world industry leaders.

The purpose of such a secretariat would be to provide training, design technology and other infrastructure support required by handmade carpet industry to contribute to growth in world trade, he said adding the government was required to work out methods for establishment of a raw material bank. Around 500 delegates from 20 countries participated in the two-day conference, organised by the Carpet Export Promotion Council and the ministry of textiles.

India ranks first in terms of volume and third in terms of value in the world carpet industry, the textiles minister Mr Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said adding the country’s total share was pegged at 17.69 per cent of US$ 1926 million global market of hand-knotted carpets. Stressing the need for attracting new private sector investment, the prime minister said sustained research and development efforts were required in the sector and the industry should consider sharing the cost of education, research and training by forming a corpus fund. Besides intensifying use of it, the industry should learn from the best practices from successful strategies adopted in other countries.

Listing out the measures taken recently, Mr Vajpayee said the government has initiated some important steps to boost carpet weaving in Jammu and Kashmir for integrated development and export promotion. The government has also unveiled a new credit card facility, on the lines of the highly successful Kisan Credit Card scheme for weavers and artisans for easy access to bank credit which would help carpet weavers to tide over their working capital problems.

Pointing out that India alone employed around 2.5 million weavers, 60 per cent of whom were in Uttar Pradesh, he said all stake holders globally should come together and formulate a strategy which would take the industry forward. He offered the technical training and skill upgradation programme run with the support of New Zealand to weavers globally.