Powerloom startups and Electricity shortage

 Context:-

• Powerlooom garment manufacturing start-up, launched in Ranchi by a 60-year-old homemaker in 2015, is struggling to run its operations because of erratic power supply so much so that the company says it is consider shifting to a state that can offer better infrastructure.
• A Jharkhand Small Industries Association official explained that Mulberry Lifestyle’s problem could have arisen because it may be located outside the Kokar Industrial Area.

Powerloom :-

• A power loom is a mechanized loom, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution.
• The first power loom was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785. It was refined over the next 47 years until a design by Kenworthy and Bullough made the operation completely automatic.
• By 1850 there was 260,000 power looms in operation in England. Fifty years later came the Northrop loom which replenished the shuttle when it was empty. This replaced the Lancashire loom.
• The Union Ministry of Textiles has launched PowerTex India, a three-year comprehensive scheme for Powerloom Sector Development. The PowerTex India scheme aims to boost common infrastructure and modernisation of the powerloom sector in the country.

The comprehensive scheme has the following components:

• In-situ Upgradation of Plain Powerlooms
• Group Workshed Scheme (GWS)
• Yarn Bank Scheme
• Common Facility Centre (CFC)
• Pradhan Mantri Credit Scheme for Powerloom Weavers
• Solar Energy Scheme for Powerlooms
• Facilitation, IT, Awareness, Market Development and Publicity for Powerloom Schemes
• Tex Venture Capital Fund
• Grant-in-Aid and Modernisation & Upgradation of Powerloom Service Centres (PSCs)

By: Shashank Shekhar