The Problems and Challenges of the Handloom Co-operative Societies in Varanasi District

Abstract

The handloom sector has a unique place in our economy. It is necessary for all round development of any state to ensure that the economic and social benefits of development should reach all the sections of society. The investigation was an attempt to know the existing socio –economic condition of co-operative society’ head,their constraints, evaluation of government welfare programs and schemes, co-operative society’ structure and condition, strength of handloom industry and future of handloom weavers and handloom industry. The present study has been conducted in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh which is one of the major handloom hubs. It is based on primary and secondary data. The present study was conducted in two cluster-Ram agar and Bajardiha .Out of 350 Handloom Co-operative Society 15 Co-operative Society were randomly selected and each societies 10 Handloom weavers were randomly selected.50 Master weavers and 51 weavers working under master weavers, 49 Independent weavers were purposively selected from densely populated area of Varanasi of handloom weavers. Total 370 Handloom weavers were selected and 15 head of the co-operative societies were selected for the study. A structured interview schedule was prepared and administered on respondents through personal interview method and observation method of data collection. Secondary data for study collected from the published and unpublished sources, annual reports, research, journals and various related websites. Data were analyzed with the help of appropriate statistical tools like Frequency, Percentage, Mean, Standard Deviation T test and F test.The computer software SPSS 16 was also used to find results. for finding out the socio –economic background of respondents the B.G.Prasad’s scale of Socio Economic Status 2017 were used and results were drawn from it. The cooperative heads are getting tough to cope up with modern technology due to unawareness and illiteracy. Thereby they only able to perform old traditional work and are creating designs which are getting out dated day by day. Findings of the study will provide a guideline to the planners , administrators and handloom weavers also for development and strengthening the Handloom industry.