With the setting up of India's first yarn bank in the powerloom clusters of Ved Road and Pandesara in Surat, the country’s largest man-made fabric (MMF) centre, hundreds of small and medium power loom weavers will have direct access to polyester yarn at concessional rates. The Union ministry of textiles has formed two special purpose vehicles, Ved Road Art Silk Small Scale Co-operative Federation and Pandesara Weavers Co-operative Society, for setting up the yarn banks.
These banks have been started with an initial corpus fund of Rs 1 crore for purchasing yarn from the open market and selling at concessional rates to its initial 1,000 member weavers. The yarn banks would provide an opportunity to the weavers to arrest the price fluctuations and curb the presence of the middlemen. The yarn banks will allow the weavers to procure yarn on credit and repaying the amount in installments.
Surat has around 5.5 lakh powerloom machines producing three crore meters of fabrics every day and employs around seven lakh workers. As per the official of Ved Road Art Silk Small Scale Co-operative Federation, there are more than one lakh weavers in Ved Road and Pandesara clusters and the yarn bank will be catering to only 100 units initially. It has started approaching the frontline spinners for the bulk procurement of yarn on concessional rates.
The yarn bank will serve twin purposes. Firstly, it will get yarn samples from around the world and store it. The domestic industry can get access to yarn samples of global standards and do further research and come out with innovative products. Second is the price benefit.
