What are Mega Handloom Clusters?

Government of India has set up four mega handloom clusters at Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), Sivasagar (Assam), Virudhunagar (Tamilnadu) and Murshidabad (West Bengal).

Each mega handloom cluster has at least 25,000 handlooms and will be developed in a time period of 5 years with an upper Central Government share of Rs.70.00 crore. Two handloom clusters at Chirala and Madhvaram in Andhra Pradesh, each covering about 5000 handlooms have been taken up in 2006-07 for their integrated and holistic development and are under implementation. In addition, 52 handloom clusters, each covering 300-500 handlooms have been taken up in Andhra Pradesh under the Integrated Handlooms Development Scheme during the period 2007-08 to 2010-11. Further, 262 Group Approach Projects have been taken up in the State of Andhra Pradesh from 2008-09 to 2010-11.