The Third National Handloom Census, 2009-10, once again reaffirmed the industry?s status as the second biggest employer after agriculture. As many as 43.46 lakh workers, comprising 38.46 adult workers and 4.85 lakh workers in the below-18 age group, are engaged in handlooms.
Apart from the job-generation potential, the handloom industry also shared some common traits with agriculture, especially in terms of its geographic spread in the rural sector. The census shows close to four-fifths of the adult workforce, numbering 32.3 lakh, was in the rural sector. Only 6.1 lakh workers, or 16%, were in the urban sector.
Rather than the rural-urban divide, a more significant attribute of the industry is the highly skewed geographical distribution of the workforce in a few major states. In fact, more than half the adult workforce was concentrated in just two states. One state alone, namely Assam in the north-east, accounted for 14.8 lakh workers or 38.6% of the total workforce. The second heaviest concentration was in West Bengal in the eastern region, which had 6.6 lakh workers accounting for 17.3% of the total.
The next two important handloom hubs were in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh; each had a little more than 3 lakh workers or 8% of the workforce. The next state with the biggest concentration of handloom workers was Uttar Pradesh in the in the north with 2.2 lakh workers or 5.6% of the total. These five states accounted for almost four-fifths of the adult workforce or 77.8% of the total. One consequence of the concentration of the handloom workers in five states is that it severely restricted the employment potential of the industry to these few areas and reduced the significance of the industry in large parts of the country.
However, the geographic spread of the industry in the rural and urban sectors differed substantially. In the rural sector, the workforce in the handloom industry was concentrated in Assam (45.1%), West Bengal (16.8%), Andhra Pradesh (5.9%). Tamil Nadu (5.7%), and Manipur (5.3%) and the five states accounted for 78.9% of the handloom workforce nationwide.
But the concentration of handloom in the urban sector was somewhat different. In fact, the highest concentration of the urban handloom workforce was in Tamil Nadu (21.65), followed by West Bengal (19.9%), Andhra Pradesh (19%), Uttar Pradesh (16.6%) and Manipur (8.2%). These five states accounted for a marginally higher 82.4% of the total urban workforce in the handloom industry.
The skewed nature of the handloom industry is not just reflected in its location but also in terms of the employment patterns. The industry is broadly dominated by independent weavers, who themselves procure the raw material and market the finished products. They constitute almost 61% of the employment, and point to the predominantly craft nature of the industry.
The second largest category in the handloom industry workforce is the segment working under master weavers and private owners, who account for a third of the workforce. The growth of the workforce engaged by master craftsmen and private owners point to a slow consolidation of the industry, signifying the rising commercialisation of production and the emergence of investors from both outside and within the traditional industry—as workers are engaged by master craftsmen and private owners who run their own production centres.
There is yet another third category in the industry, which has originated from the entry of government into the sector. Protection of handlooms from the competition of textile factories has been an important policy of government—various government schemes saw handloom workers being engaged in establishments run by state handloom development corporations, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission and primary cooperatives. Currently the third segment accounts for about one-twentieth or 5.1% of the total workers, with most of them engaged in handloom cooperatives.
Rather than the national structure, it is the statewide variation in the industry’s structure that is of more significance. This not only helps us trace the development of the industry from its traditional moorings, where independent workers predominate, to one where private investors and government sponsored organisations play a more substantial role.
The substantial diversity in the structure of the industry across the country is best brought out by the share of the various segments by ownership and employment. If one takes the case of independent workers, which is the most traditional form of organisation of production and is still the most dominant segment of the industry, it is found that the share of the segment varies substantially across the states.
Major states where independent workers are a predominant part of the workforce are Assam (96.2%), Nagaland (93.4%), Jammu & Kashmir (88.3%) and Himachal Pradesh (83.2%). However, the traditional structure dominated by the independent weaver has been radically transformed in the states where the handloom industry has been increasingly commercialised either following the entry of private investors or through state intervention.
The numbers show the states where the handloom industry has been transformed substantially with the private investors?both master craftsmen an private owners?engaging a dominant share of the workforce include West Bengal (84.3%), Andhra Pradesh (75%), Madhya Pradesh (74.7%), Uttar Pradesh (73.7%) and Bihar (73%).
Then there is yet another list of states where the government sponsored establishments dominate the handloom industry. The prominent states in this category and their share in total employment are Puducherry (72.2%), Rajasthan (70%), Kerala (59.5%) and Sikkim (53.5%).