Government of Telangana to get associated with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to bring out new designs to appeal to a wider range of people, a step towards protecting the handloom industry, collector Prashanth Jeevan Patil said at the inaugural function of textile exhibition.

Patil urged people to patronise handloom products and promote weavers as handloom formed a part of their culture. Government employees and public representatives were asked to sport handloom clothes once a week to promote such products.

He also added scores of weavers are dependent on this age-old industry which is slowly losing patronage. People should protect and preserve the handloom industry by buying products from weavers.

With an aim to promote the use of handloom fabrics, several handloom stalls were set up at the collectorates at Medak and Sangareddy.

At Sangareddy, collector Manickaraj Kanan and joint-collector V. Venkateswarlu bought a few items and even wore them. It was also decided that officers should wear handloom fabric every Monday without fail. This was the initiative suggested by IT and municipal administration minister K. Taraka Rama Rao.

The products at the stalls were brought from handloom cooperative societies of Jogipet, Narayankhed and Sangareddy.

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