handloom sector

Handloom weaving provides a major source of livelihood for lakhs of people in rural and urban areas and the handloom sector's entitlements - to raw materials, credit and markets - must be met and any government policy on textiles has to be based on a clear understanding of these continuing requirements.

This paper attempts to study the features of the labour process in a transitional situation, on the basis of a field survey in the informal handloom weaving sector in Nadia district. This process depends largely on the nature of the institutional arrangement in the sector, where usury capital has a strong presence due to the influence of the merchant lender, the 'mahajan'. The deskilling tendency associated with the relation between the producer and the mahajan and the unity of conception and execution in some cases are among the characteristics that describe this labour process.