At 6 a.m., when most homes in Angara, a village in Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema district, are still asleep, the looms in Balla Koteswara Rao and Balla Janaki’s cramped room are already at work. For the sexagenarian couple, a day means over 13 hours of work, putting in effort to weave one saree to barely save up ₹250 to ₹300 after expenses. Their labour keeps the loom moving back and forth, but delayed government payments keep them constrained to just meet ends.
“We manage to weave one saree in a day. After setting aside expenses for warps and wefts, we are left with ₹250 or ₹300 a day,” Janaki says, questioning how this is sufficient to run a family.
Pointing out the primary reason for their ordeal, Koteswara Rao says that the Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers’ Co-operative Society Ltd. (APCO) failed to pay wages to the weavers. “For more than a year, we did not receive wages on time. If we furnish a saree today, we would get payment for the same after one or two months,” Koteswara Rao, in his late 60s, says.
According to the National Federation of Handlooms and Handicrafts (NFHH), which has been working with handloom weavers in the State since 1988, the State government is yet to pay ₹265.09 crore, an amount which has been pending since 2016, to APCO and handloom societies.
The weaving sector once sustained by cooperative societies across Andhra Pradesh, particularly in East and West Godavari and B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema districts, is currently reeling under mounting dues, dwindling orders and disappearing livelihoods.
Dyed yarns kept at the Polavaram Cooperative Society, at Polavaram village in Krishna district.
| Photo Credit:
K.V.S Giri
Dwindling numbers
Andhra Pradesh is one of the major handlooms weaving regions in the country, unique for cotton and silk products including Ponduru, Uppada, Pedana, Mangalagiri, Venkatagiri, Dharmavaram, Chirala, Madanapalle, Madhavaram, among others.
According to the 4th All India Handloom Census 2019-2020, the State has 1,27,662 weavers and 49,785 allied workers. According to the Department of Handlooms, the State has around 415 cooperative societies, out of which only 200 are active, says Macherla Mohan Rao, president of the NFHH. The number of weavers, too, has come down to around 95,000, he says.
Formed with an objective of protecting the welfare of traditional artisans and preventing their exploitation at the hands of master weavers by providing continuous livelihood opportunities for them, handloom cooperative societies are organisations where weavers join hands for shared goals. The societies provide raw materials to their members, market the produce and ensure fair wages. The government also offered targeted benefits to society members to discourage weavers from seeking work from a master weaver.
However, the weavers in the Polavaram district attribute the collapse of the handloom cooperative societies in the State to the cessation of payments to be made by the government to these societies under the schemes of ‘Paavala Vaddi’ and Thrift Fund, and in the form of subsidies on raw materials, especially yarn.
The Polavaram cooperative society, set up in 1944, is one of the 36 cooperative societies of the composite district of Krishna and also one of the oldest in the State, which saw mushrooming of such societies in the years 1942-43.
According to the 2011 Census, the Polavaram village had a population of 3,345 individuals and 1,022 families. Out of these, around 700 families derived their livelihood from weaving. Most of them were members of the Polavaram Weavers’ Cooperative Production and Sale Society Ltd.
Today, the number of weavers working for the society stands at 215. Some of them left to work under master weavers and some others left for other professions, including agricultural work, even if it means more work and less pay, says K. Vasu, the society’s manager.
“It was to eliminate the middlemen and master weavers that such societies were formed. But today, the whole purpose is defeated, and we have gone back to living in the pre-Independence era,” Vasu says.
For one, Devi Vijayambika Weavers’ Cooperative Production And Sale Society Ltd., located in Pedana, has almost wound up its operations due to financial constraints. A small society, it once had around 30 weavers working, and now there are five left.
Chinta Rao, now in his 60s, was one of the last people from this society to start working for a master weaver. “What other choice did I have? All the benefits that we enjoyed once as society members have been taken away from us,” he says, adding that the manager of the society resigned a few years back.
Chinta Rao used to get financial support from both the Union and State governments in the form of yarn subsidy, thrift fund and also marketing incentives. Now, since most of these have been discontinued, he shifted to working for a master weaver.
A weaver working on a handloom at Rayavaram village in Krishna district.
| Photo Credit:
K.V.S. Giri
What befell the handloom societies?
The issue dates back to the year 2018, when the then TDP government, months before the 2019 Assembly election, made a slew of promises to woo the weaver community in the region. During a programme in Chirala on August 7, 2018, then Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu announced that the special rebate on handloom products, offered by the government to attract more customers and also give an edge to traditional weavers in a competitive market, will be increased from 20% to 30%. A Government Order, G.O. MS. No. 51, was issued in February, 2019, ordering for the enhancement.
Following this, societies began selling their produce directly to customers at a rate lower than the cost of production, hoping that the government would reimburse for the discounted rate. “We were given hopes. We gave away all our products at 30% less than the selling price,” says Chinta Rao.
Things turned upside down for the weavers when the government changed as Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy formed the Cabinet after winning the 2019 Assembly poll. “YSRCP leader Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who assumed the charge as the Chief Minister, did not care about the pending dues, but announced new welfare schemes like Nethanna Nestham, which did not help us much,” he adds.
Additionally, another GO was issued in February 2019, ordering for enhancement of the contribution made by the State government towards the Thrift Fund from the then existing 8% to 16%. But that also never happened. Mohan Rao says that while weavers are contributing to the Thrift Fund, the government stopped contributing its share from 2019. The implementation was patchy before too, he says.
Then, on March 8, 2019, the TDP government issued another GO, G.O. Ms. No. 55, ordering for enhancement of yarn subsidy from 20% to 40% on purchase of yarn, dyes and chemicals from National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC) and APCO.
None of these was implemented after the YSRCP government came. “While the handloom sector in the State is facing the worst crisis today, a similar situation unfolded in 1995 when N. Chandrababu Naidu was the Chief Minister. Then, too, huge payments were pending to societies,” Mohan Rao recalls.
One of the reasons that many societies lie dormant today is because of non-payment of dues, he says.
A society borrows cash credits from District Cooperative Central Banks (DCCBs) for procuring raw materials to be supplied to its member weavers. The collective bunch of handwoven products produced by the weavers of a society are then sold to private traders or is procured by the APCO, which makes the payment after selling the products in markets. The amount received from the APCO and the government is then used to repay the loans taken from the banks.
A shed in Pedana that once housed six pit looms has now been converted into a house with one loom. The other looms have now been covered with slabs. Many weavers are shifting to other professions.
| Photo Credit:
K.V.S. Giri
Awaiting payments from govt.
According to the managers and weavers, APCO has never made payments on time because they were also waiting for payments from the government.
According to the data from the NFHH, APCO distributed products procured from societies to various government schools, but the government is yet to pay APCO for the same. The Social Welfare Department owes APCO ₹2.97 crore, the Tribal Welfare Department owes ₹20.33 crore, BC Welfare owes ₹9.99 crore, and the Department of Health, Medical and Family Welfare owes 12.59 crore. In total, APCO has to receive ₹90.53 crore from various government departments.
Since the apex body was not paid on time, it could not pay the societies on time. When payments were delayed by more than a year, the weavers bore the brunt.
Handloom weavers in Angara, a village in Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema district, launched a relay hunger strike in October 2025 that went on for 16 days, demanding that payments be made immediately.
While Labour Minister Vasamsetti Subhash promised them that their grievances would be resolved, nothing has changed so far, the manager of a society in Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema district says on condition of anonymity.
Usually, banks give cash credits to a society at an interest rate of 12%. “Since 2018, due to non-payment of dues, whatever little we are earning by selling our products to traders is also going towards clearing the interest,” says the manager. The government owes ₹3 crore to this society, and the manager says they expended more than ₹70 lakh towards clearance of interest.
“There is no escape from the mounting debts. What use is the annual financial aid of ₹25,000, being distributed to weavers under the government’s Nethanna Sevalo scheme, when our debts are running into lakhs? We just want our money back,” the manager says.
For the Polavaram weavers’ society, the State government owes ₹52 lakh in total, says Vasu. “There was a time when we were making profits to the tune of ₹12 lakh, and after paying the wages, the remaining amount used to be distributed among the members as bonus,” he says, adding that while the bonus earlier used to be ₹10,000, it has now come down to ₹900.
Last year, the total sales at the society touched ₹1.19 crore, against the cost of production that stood at ₹1.07 crore. But the delayed payments have not had much impact on Krishna district societies. After earmarking 40% of the proceeds towards society’s reserves, the rest was distributed among 215 weavers in the form of a bonus, which would be ₹3,500 per weaver.
Meanwhile, the societies in Krishna district also sell their produce to private traders directly.
No elections since 2013
The cooperative societies were developed by weavers and for the welfare of weavers. But in Andhra Pradesh, elections to these societies have not been held since 2013. The five-year term of the body elected in 2013 ended in 2018. Since then, Handloom Development Officers have been made in charge of these societies.
When asked about this, Chief Special Secretary, Handlooms Department, R.P. Sisodia said the elections would be held after the conduct of the local body elections. There was no response to the question on the status of payments to the societies.
