"They provide the raw material and machinery
to the weavers and buy their finished products at a cheap price. A
weaver spends 15 to 20 days to weave a sari which is bought at Rs 600 or
Rs 700 by the middle men and traders and then sold in the
showrooms for exorbitant rates," said Lenin Raghuvanshi, founder,
People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), an Indian
non-governmental organisation that fights for the rights of marginalised
people in Varanasi.
Idris Ansari, a seventh generation weaver of Benarasi silk sarees in
Varanasi, said clusters are of no use to the real beneficiaries-the
weavers. "The middle-men or the gaddidars gobble up all the
money and become richer," Ansari said, adding that he cannot afford to
buy silk from the government's silk depot which sells it to the handloom
weaver. Incidentally, there is only one silk depot in Varanasi and is
unable to meet the needs of all the weavers here.
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