Weavers gear up to embrace e-banking

KOLKATA: In step with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a cashless nation, weavers are planning a switch from cash to digital transactions. The National Handloom Development Corporation ( NHDC) has started giving training to weavers on internet banking and use of its EDhaga app for everything from yard ordering to payment.

To make handloom weavers aware about various cashless transaction options through mobile phones likes UPI (unified payment interface) and USSD (unstructured supplementary service data), NHDC has organised 35 camps in various states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Jammu and Kashmir and close to 27,000 weavers have so far been covered under the programme.

"We deal in close to 17 lakh kg of yarn that involves four lakh weavers. We are aiming to make all the transactions by all the weavers digital through our app," said Sarvepalli Srinivas, managing director at the NHDC.

Based on the requirement of raw material like cotton, silk, wool, etc and the quota availability, the amount payable by an individual weaver varies from Rs 8,000 to Rs 15,000 per month. "Given the present situation, arranging that much cash could have been difficult for weavers but the training in using online payment technology through this app will solve any such issues," Srinivas said.

The app that was developed over the last three months and is available in English, Hindi and Telugu and would also be available in Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Urdu and Kannad in the next one month. "E ­Dhaga application will help handloom weavers to place their raw material requirements with NHDC, make digital payment for their orders and also help them in tracking their order status, delivery status of raw material, subsidy status on their mobile phones under yarn supply scheme by Government of India," Srinivas said.

The registered weavers under NHDC who have a passbook will automatically become eligible to use the app and his passbook number would become his login id. Once logged in the app would show all transaction history from the passbook enabling the weavers to keep a track of procurements.