Gramodyog and PHE minister Guru Rudra Kumar laid emphasis on directly procuring forest produce for making of natural dye (colours) from the tribal regions through Gramodyog department. It will help generate employment in the tribal regions of the state, the minister said.
The minister was holding review meeting of Chhattisgarh State Handloom Development and Marketing Cooperative Federation Limited on Saturday.
Gramodyog department, taking the innovative steps, has been promoting use of natural colours in handloom fabrics mainly through use of Mehendi (henna/Lawsonia inermis), pomegranate, ‘harra’ (Terminelia chebula), kattha (Senegalia catechu), bark of babool (Vachellia nilotica) and juice of onions. The demand for natural-dyed fabrics has increased over the time.
The officials intimated that for local level natural dyeing of cloths, two persons have been imparted training at New Delhi. The trained persons’ technical knowledge was used to colour around 3000 metres of Kosa cloth, which was sold at New Delhi, Noida and Mumbai.
They intimated that from different government departments the federation has received Rs 194 crore worth work order for year 2018-19, which has been 100 percent completed. For fiscal year 2019-20, work order of Rs 169 crore worth cloth have been received against which Rs 166 crore worth materials have been dispatched.
In current year, the target of government requirement supply has been kept at Rs 205 crore. Minister reviewed the status of orders and payment received.
The officials intimated that the government departments that mainly seek supply of dress materials are school education, women and child development, health, jail, forest, police and Tribal welfare department.
In the recent international buyer-seller meet orders for kosa dress materials worth Rs 11.25 lakh from Tata-Titan Company and of Rs 40 lakh from MP Handloom Board have been received.