Drive against powerloom gamosas continues in Guwahati city

Guwahati: Ahead of the Rongali Bihu festival in the state, the Directorate of Handloom and Textiles, Government of Assam, has continued its drive against machine-made gamosas from other states on the markets of Guwahati. After raiding locations in Fancy Bazar and Ganeshguri markets, the authorities raided the Beltola market area of the city and seized a considerable number of gamosas that they found doubtful.

Officials from the Directorate of Handloom and Textiles continued their raids on both licensed businesses as well as street vendors against the sale of gamosas made outside Assam. This initiative has been undertaken to preserve the GI-tagged handloom product from Assam and in the interest of the local weavers. More than ten such gamosa sellers in Beltola were raided by the officials. They seized more than 100 doubtful gamosas during this raid.

Officials mentioned that they had raided the markets based on the information given by the local citizens and customers in these markets. He also pointed out that the number of temporary street vendors selling such items was considerably higher than that of licenced business establishments.

Expressing concern over the prevalence of power loom Gamosas in the market, an official from the Directorate stated, "Compared to permanent commercial establishments, street vendors are selling more power loom Gamosas in the city. We have received input from journalists and our own sources indicating that multiple establishments are still engaged in the sale of these banned items. They also issued a very strict warning to all violators regarding the matter, mentioning that strict legal action would be enforced on them if they did not pay heed to the ban on the sale of powerloom-made gamosas."

They also said that a total of nine squads are on duty across the Kamrup Metropolitan District to prevent any such occurrences and that these raids will continue to take place. Meanwhile, the sellers demanded that the authorities, both the police and the handloom departments, work towards completely preventing the entry of such materials into the state and not harass the sellers who try to earn a minimum livelihood from such activities.

Although it has been seen in the past few years that the departments concerned undertake such raids during the Bihu season, they are seen to be considerably inactive during the rest of the year, and many businesses continue to sell such powerloom-made gamochas around the year.

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