Jharkhand and Odisha are the first states to be given funds to begin a computer aided design centres to make weavers well equipped in modern handloom designing . The design centre is a project of ministry of electronics and information and technology. Th main design centre has been established in the Jharkhand Resham Development Institute, Hehal (Ranchi) which was inaugurated on Saturday. Jharcraft has been given the responsibility to establish and manage the centres.

The main centre was inaugurated by Sanjay Kumar, principal secretary to chief minister. On the occasion, Kumar said that Jharcraft should involve famous designers to create a brand and improve marketing.

Apart of establishing design centre, ancillary centres have been established at Seraikela-Kharsawan, Latehar, Hazaribagh and Deoghar where the training will begin next week. A total of four batches will be trained at the five centres, each batch of 20 weavers will be trained for six months.

In the next two year, 400 weavers will be trained at the five centres, said MD Jharcraft, AT Mishra. Applications were invited from all the matriculate weavers through advertisement on the basis of which the trainees were selected. After training these weavers will give training to other weavers in state.

He further added that the weavers will first be taught the basics of computers and will be trained in modern weaving designs like jacquard and dobby. This will create diversity in design and help in marketing of the handloom products.

The computer aided design centres have been established with a budget of Rs. 5.24 crore, of which Rs. 2.86 crore has been given by GoI while Rs.2.38 crore by state government. Kolkata based centre of C-DAC, a government of India initiative will provide training and technical support to these design centres.