Hathkargha Samvardhan Sahayata

Why is in news? Financial assistance of Rs. 659.26 lakh provided to Karnataka between 2020-July 2023 under Hathkargha Samvardhan Sahayata

The Ministry of Textiles is implementing National Handloom Development Programme to provide need based financial assistance to eligible handloom agencies and handloom workers through various interventions like Cluster Development Programme including Hathkargha Samvardhan Sahayata (HSS), Design & product development, Marketing support, Weaver’s Mudra loan, Weavers welfare etc. for development of handlooms and welfare of handloom workers across the country including Karnataka.

Under Hathkargha Samvardhan Sahayata (HSS), financial assistance is provided to handloom workers for upgradation of looms & accessories to improve quality and enhance productivity based on the complete proposals received from the concerned States/UTs Governments.

The performance of interventions under Cluster Development Programme including Hathkargha Samvardhan Sahayata has been evaluated by independent third-party agencies and the studies indicated positive impact led to increase in earnings and the number of working days of handloom workers.

It is a continuous process to provide financial assistance to cover more handloom workers under the scheme across the country, including Karnataka State, depending on the receipt of complete proposals from States/UTs & availability of fund in a particular year.

Cluster Development Programme:

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW), Government of India, has launched a new programme for Horticulture Cluster Development to enhance the global competitiveness of the Indian horticulture sector.

The National Horticulture Board has been designated as the Nodal Agency for implementation of Cluster Development Programme as a component of Central Sector Scheme of NHB.

The Cluster Development Programme (CDP) is designed to leverage the geographical specialisation of horticulture clusters and promote integrated and market-led development of preproduction, production, post-harvest, logistics, branding, and marketing activities.

MoA&FW has identified 55 horticulture clusters, of which 12 have been selected for the pilot launch of the Programme.

Based on the learnings from the pilot project, the programme will be scaled up to cover all 55 clusters.

The experiences gathered from the implementation of the pilot phase will provide policy insights and field level learnings that will help in better implementation of programme in all horticulture clusters across India.

For the implementation of the CDP, cluster-wise Cluster Development Agencies (CDAs) have been appointed based on the recommendations of the State/Central Government.

This involvement of state government bodies through CDA will ensure institutionalisation of learnings which can be replicated in future for development of new clusters in the country.