GUWAHATI, Oct 30 - At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is emphasising on building a self-reliant India, the Assam Apex Weavers and Artisans Co-operative Federation Ltd (ARTFED) is going through a very tough time. Although amid the pandemic-hit situation, ARTFED has a great role to play in paving the way for employment generation in the State, during an investigation carried out by this correspondent it came to light that due to various reasons cooperative�s production has reduced drastically in recent times. Even one of its Common Facility Centre (CFC) on cane and bamboo located at Belsor in Nalbari district has remained defunct for several years.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, Jogen Mena, a villager of Belsor informed that ARTFED officials used to organise demonstrations in the CFC for the local people on the use of various machineries to make different items from locally-produced cane and bamboo. �The CFC ran only for a few days and then became defunct. Initially, we were hopeful that through the CFC we could avail new ways to earn livelihood. But we got nothing from it,� Mena said.
Sources at the ARTFED said that the CFC was established by spending an amount of Rs 45 lakh for which the apex co-operative federation had also procured 11 sophisticated machines from outside the State. Its aim was to help the local people of Belsor and it�s nearby villages in developing the village industry.
The project was sanctioned during the 2004-05 financial year and it started functioning in 2010. Unfortunately, in 2013 the CFC became defunct as its employees were transferred to other places by the authority concerned.
Similarly, the production of the handloom production unit located at Nalbari town has also decreased drastically in recent times due to mismanagement.
According to ARTFED officials, the centre was one of the best performing production units of the co-operative federation. Even in 2017, the State government had allocated a fund of Rs 50 lakh to introduce sophisticated looms in the unit, but due to some unknown reasons ARTFED did not utilise the fund.
Earlier, the production unit had 22 looms, but now it is running with only 13 looms. Earlier, the unit produced around 2000 gamosas per month, but now its production rate has been lowered to around 325 gamosas per month.
According to local people, at present around seven weavers are working in the production unit. When this correspondent visited the site it came to light that the production unit is running in a rented house and in a very dilapidated condition.
Meanwhile, ARTFED Managing Director Mukul Chandra Deka said that the Belsor-based CFC became defunct because the machineries were not up-to-date. He also stated that at present only one employee is working at the centre.
�We will soon move a proposal with the State government to procure new sophisticated machineries for the CFC,� Deka said.
The MD further admitted that lack of appropriate number of weavers has caused a fall in production rate in its Nalbari-based production centre.
�We will introduce semi-automatic looms in the centre to increase its production rate,� Deka added.
