Cluster Intervention for Development of Handloom Sector

Handloom industry is an important economic activity in India. It also preserve cultural heritage of the country. The sector provides employment to about 4.33 million weavers working on 2.38 million handlooms for their survival. The contribution of the handloom sector is 15 per cent in the total cloth production of the country. The sector is constrained with low level of income and educational attainment of weavers. In his Budget Speech for 2005-06, the Finance Minister announced to adopt the cluster development approach for 20 handloom clusters for the production and marketing of handloom products at a total cost of Rs.400 million. This announcement has been conceptualized and implemented in the form of ¿Integrated Handloom Cluster Development Programme¿. Under the impulse of cluster interventions, need based activities have been completed for the holistic development of chosen clusters. A detailed analysis of all the twenty clusters has been undertaken to assess the impacts of interventions.The book will help the academicians, researcher and policy makersto understand intricacy and challenges of cluster development initiatives in the decentralized sector.