VISAKHAPATNAM: Minister for Industries, IT, Commerce, Handlooms and Textiles Gudivada Amarnath on Sunday said that steps are being taken to set up APCO mega showrooms across the State on the lines of such shops in Hyderabad, Delhi, and Kolkata. He noted that there is a good recognition and demand for handlooms and silk textiles all over the country.
He was speaking at the State-level 8th National Handloom Day celebrations at the Zilla Parishad Hall. He said that they set a target to sell handloom clothes worth Rs 100 crore in the coming year across the State. Mentioning that the celebrations are held in all the 26 districts of the State, he said that the handloom sector is the largest employer in the country, after agriculture. He informed that 1 lakh 30 thousand handloom workers are directly working in the State and another 70,000 people are dependent on the sector.
An amount of Rs 567.07 crore was spent on the development of handlooms under the ‘YSR Nethanna’ scheme in the State in the last three years. The minister claimed that handloom cloths worth Rs 49 lakh were sold through e-commerce, adding that Mega APCO showrooms will come up in Visakhapatnam.