New Delhi: Serving the twin purpose of empowering women and creating vast employment opportunities for handloom weavers in the state, the Yogi Adityanath government is going to provide over 1 lakh sarees to BC-Sakhis designed by NIFT Raebareilly.
To promote the handloom industry, the UP government will provide two handloom sarees to the women working under the BC Sakhi scheme as a uniform. For this, the government will buy the sarees made by the handloom weavers.
Those weavers involved in the work will be given Rs 750 per sari as wages through DBT.
KP Verma, MD, UP Handlooms informed that each of the 58,000 women working as BC- Sakhi will be given two saris by the government.
The designs sent by NIFT have been already approved by the Chief Minister and the work of weaving sarees is under progress. The cost of each saree amounts to Rs 1934.15 and a fund of Rs 22,43,61,400 has been released to the department for 1.16 lakh sarees and dress materials.
The UP Handloom department has engaged five Producer Companies in this regard of which, 3 are from Varanasi district and one each from Mau and Azamgarh.
UP Handlooms has already made a payment of Rs 1.20 crore to almost 537 weaver and over 12,837 sarees are ready.
According to KP Verma, “Due to the adverse economic conditions as a result of Covid-19, a crisis of employment had arisen for the weavers. Through this scheme, employment has been provided to the weaver. Also, the scheme has eliminated the role of middlemen and the money is being directly transferred into their bank account. The weavers covered by the scheme are getting maximum benefit and as a result, other handloom weavers are also getting attracted towards the scheme and enrolling themselves with the producer companies.”
On 21st May 2020, the Uttar Pradesh Government announced a proposal to induct 58,000 BC Sakhis, one for every existing Gram Panchayat. This is expected to create an enormous effect by virtually establishing a one-stop solution for all banking needs of every local household at its doorstep. At present, the Department of Rural Development is conducting a thorough selection and recruitment process based on a robust mobile app-based mechanism.
The incorporation of SHG members as BC Sakhis helps in ensuring financial inclusion, timely capitalization, digitalization of SHG transactions, and overall development of the community. It further strengthens the objective of building the entrepreneurial abilities of women.
