Name: Dolly Lamba
Country: India

Year: 2019
Volume: Volume-4, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 25-27

In today’s scenario, women empowerment has become a major concern at both national and international levels. Ifwe talk about India, this concern i.e. empowerment of women has to be focused majorly in non-formal sectors,where women are working predominantly. One such sector is the handloom sector. With over 4.3 million peopledirectly and indirectly involved in the production, the handloom industry is the second largest after agriculturewhere we find largest economical activities. Industrialization in India proved to be a doom for our handloom andkhadi due to introduction of power loom. It majorly affected the life of women, which was the main work force inthe handloom sector as compared to men. As Jawaharlal Nehru rightly said that “the greatest revolution in a countryis the one that affect the status and living conditions of its women (Sen Gupta, 1974). In handloom industry wehave about 78% of women workers wherein, Sikkim has the lowest and Assam has the highest number of women
workers. The women workers are generally illiterate and poor which prove to be the two major factors stronglyaffecting the livelihood of these women. Thus, the economic status of these handloom women weavers shouldbe raised in the present scenario. The main purpose to conduct this study is to throw a light on the conditions ofwomen weavers through the years and suggest some action plans to combat this depreciation. The data frompublished material such as government reports, plan documents, articles, reference books has been collected to andpresented herein to form an unbiased conclusion.
Keywords - Handloom industry, women empowerment, women weavers, skill development