Admn drops proposed move to provide polyester clothes

Puducherry, Sep 13 (UNI) Succumbing to the pressure from the handloom weavers, the Puducherry administration has dropped its proposed move to provide polyester clothes under the free distribution scheme, instead of procuring handloom clothes from Pontex.

Since 1996, the government used to procure handloom clothes from Pontex under free distribution scheme to the BPL families during festival times. However, in a recent function, Welfare Minister M Kandasamy citing the poor quality of the clothes, announced that the procurement from Pontex would be stopped and polyester clothes purchased from outside would be distributed this year.

This drew widespread protest and the weavers took off agitations.

Following this, Mr Kandasamy convened a meeting of the Legislators in which it was decided to drop the move to purchase polyester clothes and to continue the supply of handloom clothes.

A committee under CPI Legislator R Viswanathan was also constituted to look into the matter of purchasing clothes from Pontex and also to conduct a survey of the people involved in handloom weaving here.

UNI