Installation work of the first Blanket Processing unit of the state at Amgaon in Rajnandgaon is in its last stage. Hopefully the fitting of modern machineries brought from Panipat (Haryana) would be completed in a week.
On July 25, the district level committee comprising advisor appointed by the Government Naveen Kumar Gupta, principal of ITI Pendri, deputy director Bunkar Seva Kendra and assistant director Handicrafts, will review the Amgaon Blanket Processing Unit and will certify it. According to an official press statement issued here on Wednesday, the Amgaon Blanket Processing Unit will start functioning from the first fortnight of August.
With the establishment of this unit, the blankets produced in various districts of the State need not send to Panipat for processing. According to official sources, the Amgaon Blanket Processing Unit, about 35 km away from the district headquarters, being established with a cost of Rs 2.55 crore, would have a processing capacity of 500 blankets per day.
The Rural Engineering Services Department has completed the infrastructure construction with a cost of Rs 59 lakh. The sources said that every year about 50,000 blankets were being produced by the 35 Bunkar Samities, including Khursitikul, Kumarda, Somajhittiya, Rampur and Buchatola, in Rajnandgaon district.
At present about 1,400 blanket weaving units are working in the district through which about 5,000 villagers have been getting job. With the special efforts of Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh, sanction for Blanket Processing Unit at Amgaon, the only one in Chhattisgarh, has been accorded, so that the blankets being produced in the district could be processed in the district. The cost of 54”x90” size blanket is about Rs 250 and when it is sent for processing at Panipat, Rs 100 is added to the production cost. Because of which the production cost of blanket increases and the workers would not get proper cost of their work.