IT and Textile Minister K T Rama Rao reviewing the functioning of the Textile Department on Wednesday directed the officials to give the government subsidy to the weavers through Aadhaar and biometric system.

All the benefits would be provided to the weavers directly. In order to avoid the leakages, the government would soon link all the benefits to the Aadhaar and biometric system.

There would also be a directory at the state-level which would have the statistics like number of weavers, number of looms of the weavers, their production capacity etc.

The officials were asked to prepare policy to see that the pension of the weavers is deposited in to their bank accounts. He directed the officials to have unique policies for the benefit of the weavers as desired by the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

The Minister was informed that there were 17,000 weavers’ looms in the State and Geo tagging were completed for the 14,300 looms.

The primary objective of the government was to save the weaver community. The government would provide support to the weavers if they want to go into other sector if the textile sector was not providing any benefit. The weavers would also be given loans on special subsidy.

He said that the government was providing 50 percent subsidy to the weavers for procuring the yarn. The Minister inquired on how the procurement was going on in the cotton, polyester, silk, wool and other yarn and also wanted to know what changes can be made.

The Minister said that government should play the role of master weaver, with which the small weavers would have more benefit.