Ritu Kumar joins battle to lower GST on handlooms

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Nov 27, 2017

The designer Ritu Kumar has joined the campaign to lower the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate on handloom textiles as she continues to promote their use in the Indian fashion industry.

Kumar, who has consistently used handloom textiles in her designs for many years has closely aligned herself with the Indian government’s “Make in India” campaign. However, she feels that current GST rates are not helping to promote the production of handloom textiles as the campaign would suggest.

Kumar said: “Today you see a lot of crafts people’s children moving to the city and not taking up traditional crafts. It is important to provide incentives for them to come back and work. If we can lower the GST, or eliminate it, from the handicraft or handloom areas, it will give an incentive to the younger craftspeople to come back to this livelihood.”

The handloom textile Khadi is currently exempt from the GST but many traditional weavers are demanding that other weaves such as Ikat also be made GST exempt. Many are also arguing that current GST rates are a sizeable increase from rates under the previous Value Added Tax (VAT) system and this has been causing considerable financial strain on weavers. Speaking about the sheer size of the handloom textile manufacturing community in India, Kumar said: “This is... the size of most small countries; the population. It is very important to both sustain the craft and the art behind [handloom] as well as the livelihood of so many people.”

Ritu Kumar has been running her eponymous label for over 40 years after starting it in a small village near Kolkata. Kumar, who specialises in bridal and traditional wear, currently has 14 flagship stores across India as well as an e-commerce store and her designs also feature in online and offline multi-brand boutiques.