Tamil Nadu: For 60 weaver families in Ranipet region, monsoon means livelihood pause

RANIPET: Each monsoon, around 60 families of handloom weavers in Vazhaipandal, near Arcot, lose three to four months of income as groundwater floods the four-foot-deep pits housing their looms. The houses, built by now-defunct, silk handloom co-operative society 30 years ago, were not designed to accommodate the looms adequately. Despite repeated protests and petitions, the weavers allege that officials have failed to address their plight.

On Pachai Amman Street in Vazhaipandal, a village on the Arcot border, about 10 km from Arani, identical rows of houses stand side by side. Almost every family is engaged in the traditional silk handloom trade, weaving the famed Arani and Kanchipuram silk sarees.

Siva, 40, a local weaver, says "I typically take 10 days to finish a silk saree and earn a commission of 4,000 to 5,000. It is difficult to do this work alone, without my wife and children. We work as a team," he says while working on a pink-and-white silk saree with a butta pattern. A weaver's hands and feet move around 25,000 times to craft a single saree, he adds.

Like several other weaver families, Siva lives in one of the 600-sq-ft houses built by the now-defunct Pachai Amman Silk Handloom Co-operative Society. Each house has a living room, a storeroom, a kitchen and an outdoor toilet. An 8-by-12-ft wooden-framed loom occupies the living room. "Ideally, a handloom room should be 12 ft high, but the ceiling here is only 10 ft," Siva says. To accommodate the loom, the weavers dug pits about four feet below the floor to install the foot pedals.

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The arrangement works until the monsoon sets in. Water seeps through the floors, filling the loom pits, while the ceilings begin to leak. The resulting dampness poses a serious threat to the delicate silk fabric.

"We have to be very careful. We take off our shirts and shield the sarees with cloth so that even a drop of sweat does not ruin the fabric. If a hair or a tiny insect gets trapped in the weave, we have to remove it meticulously and rethread that section. That is how delicate the work is," Siva says. Prolonged dampness also exposes the silk to fungal damage.

"For three to four months during the monsoon, we lose our livelihood. We cannot risk the sarees getting wet from groundwater or water dripping from the ceiling," he says.

The weavers are seeking a common work shed where they can operate their looms through the monsoon without risking damage to their products.

Before the Assembly election in April, the Vazhaipandal weavers hung black flags in protest against the then DMK MLA J L Eswarappan, alleging that he had not addressed the flooding in the loom pits.

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During the recently concluded Tamil Nadu Assembly session, Arcot MLA S M Sukumar of the AIADMK raised the issue of the Vazhaipandal weavers. However, securing land ownership remains another hurdle. With the co-operative society defunct, the families have to pursue the transfer of the land pattas to their individual names.

When TNIE contacted the Assistant Director of Handlooms, Ranipet, he said that since the weavers are not part of the primary co-operative society, the scheme to provide a common work shed will be taken care of by the Central government's Weavers Service Centre in Kanchipuram. Even so, he said he would investigate the matter.

The Deputy Director of the Weavers Service Centre, Kanchipuram, told TNIE that the request for a common shed could be processed if the weavers formed a self-help group or another organisation. He added that the matter would be examined further.