Traditional weavers are fearing for their profession in Bogura, Joypurhat, Naogaon and Gaibandha districts, as they have no modern weaving training.
A good many of them have already switched over to other professions, including agriculture, finding it difficult to bear the cost of running their families with the income from the ancestral profession.
According to an estimate, the number of weaving families in Bogura district alone has fallen by more than 400 to 800.
Modern weaving clothes have far better demand in the market than those they traditionally weave, traditional weavers say.
That’s why their income has also fallen to such a level that they can now hardly see the future in the ancestral profession, they add.
And to provide modern weaving training for weavers in the region, the government took up the move to set up a loom training centre there.
As such, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid the foundation stone for constructing a building in Bogura’s Kahaloo upazila at the cost of Tk 80 million.
The construction of the loom training centre has still not begun, let alone training for the struggling traditional weavers in the region.
Even a basic loom training centre that has been in Kahaloo since 1988 hardly comes in handy for weavers nowadays as the condition of the office is shabby and unfit for providing any training.
Kahaloo Basic Loom Training Centre Officer Md Harunur Rahman says the condition of the office is too bad to arrange for training weavers there.
Executive Engineer of Public Works Department Md Baki Ullah says they cannot start the construction of the loom training centre building, as they have not received the fund.
Once the fund is received, they will start the construction of the loom training centre building, he adds.
