Jaya Shree Textiles (JST) of Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited, Kolkata, in collaboration with the Union government’s Weavers’ Service Centre (WSC), Vijayawada, to promote Kalamakari art on linen fabric.

According to the promotional plan of the business and the Kalamkari art, the JST, a leading player in linen and wood segment of the global textiles, will supply linen yarn to Pedana weavers, who will weave it into a cloth. This will provide better income source to the handloom weavers.

The product development experiments were done in the unit of Kalamkari exporter Pitchuka Srinivas of Pedana, where the new mission likely to come into force in a few weeks.

Initially, local weavers led by Pitchuka Srinivas would be trained in weaving of the linen fabric with the technical support from the WSC.

JST Marketing Manager S. Srinivasan and WSC Deputy Director Vishesh Nautiyal, have expressed their willingness for the joint effort after witnessing favourable results during their ‘product development’ experiments on Kalamkari printing on linen fabric.

Later, the traditional Kalamkari designs with natural colours would be printed on it for exclusively meant for export to European countries. The plan aims at bringing out a product that is mix of three separate works — involving a textile industry that supplies linen yarn, weaver who weaves the yarn into cloth and Kalamkari artisans. This will be a mixed eco-friendly traditional product.

The success of the project to be grounded in Pedana itself will boost daily income of the handloom weaver, in addition to attracting customers for Kalamkari products across Europe.

As it has been proved that Europeans strongly perfect linen products and this comes as boon for Kalamkari export houses to tap the market.

The mixed eco-friendly traditional product will fetch remunerative returns for all the stakeholders.