Be it the potters of Narayanpet, the migrants or the weavers, the Covid 19 spread had a huge impact on everyone, especially small business owners. While people are still covering the losses incurred during two waves of Covid 19 in India, Narayanpet District Collector Hari Chandana Dasari helped the agree such people in her district, stand on their feet again by producing cloth masks on a large scale.
The collector created over 4000 mask-making jobs in the district. This way she not only benefitted the weavers but also the women SHGs who were involved in the process. This is one of the reasons why Ms. Chandana is the only bureaucrat from Telangana who got shortlisted for the prestigious Prime Minister’s Excellence in Public Administration Award 2020.
STRUGGLE DURING PANDEMIC
Narayanpet, situated 167 km from the state’s capital Hyderabad, is famous as a traditional weavers district. Its handloom is also Geographical Indications (GI) indexed. While speaking to Indian Masterminds, Ms. Chandana said “There are about 5000 weaver families in the district. When the Covid pandemic first hit India and the country went under a lockdown, the products of these weaver families stopped moving and the sales declined steeply. Some of them came to us and showed their dead stocks.”
Despite the government aid through the Thrift Fund Scheme and the ration which was being provided, their stocks kept piling up. In the meantime, the health department issued a protocol of using double or triple-layered cloth masks to stay away from the disease.
INVOLVING WOMEN SHGs
These were two issues facing the district administration. While there wasn’t enough material to make masks and secondly the were a lot of women SHGs who were sitting idle on huge dear clothing stock. Collector Dasari found one solution to both problems.
There were around 3000 trained women with sewing machines. “We decided that these women would purchase the dead raw cloth stock, which would benefit the weavers, and in turn, these women would value add to that material and create masks,” says Ms. Dasari
Therefore, in March 2020, the mask-making jobs, as well as the production of cloth masks, started in Narayanpet and a huge demand was recorded. As the Covid pandemic was new for everyone, the mainstream industrial production of cloth masks did not start at that time which indeed helps both the SHGs and weavers in making profits out of the sold products.
Till now around they have made a cool Rs 50 lakhs profit by selling these cloth masks. Ms. Chandana said, “Due to the huge demand during the first and second wave, the masks were sold at excessively high be process and each women SHG was making two-three rupees by selling one mask. Similarly, the weavers were earning around Rs 45 per meter of cloth. Therefore, both the SHGs and the weavers benefitted during the hard times.”
DEALING IN OTHER PRODUCTS
The district administration of Narayanpet played a huge role in facilitating the production and selling of the products which were getting produced by these women. Once they gained confidence by selling the masks, these women SHGs started exploring other products as well.
During the peak of Covid, with the guidance of in-house professors in Narayanpet, the women SHGs produced products like Ayush kwath, ayurvedic masks, ayurvedic solutions, etc. Apart from this, clothing, handloom products like pure cotton sarees, silk sarees, cushion covers and bags, herbal products, food products and accessories are also being sold on the online platform called Aarunya Narayanpet.
