KTR sends postcard to PM Modi to roll back GST on handloom products

Appealing to weavers in the State as well to write postcards to the PM highlighting the issue, the Minister asked everyone fond of handloom products to join the campaign.

Hyderabad: Handlooms and Textiles Minister KT Rama Rao on Saturday launched a campaign to bring down the financial distress experienced by handloom weavers in the State and wrote a postcard addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him to roll back the five percent GST on handloom clothes and raw material.

Appealing to weavers in the State as well to write postcards to the PM highlighting the issue, the Minister asked everyone fond of handloom products to join the campaign. Highlighting the significance of the handloom sector in the struggle for India’s freedom and the history of the handloom art, the Minister said he had taken up issues faced by handloom weavers with the Central government on multiple occasions. However, there was no positive response.

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The union government, which has scrapped welfare programmes for weavers, imposed the GST on handloom products and raw material even when the sector was the second largest sector to generate employment, after the agriculture sector. The GST on handloom products should be rolled back on humanitarian grounds, he added.