Kadapa district has about 200 societies and each society could have between 20 to 200
weavers as members. Some of the clusters are Proddatur, Dommara Nandyala,
Jammalamadugu, Veparala, Madhavaram, Morugudi, Pullampet etc.
Madhavaram is a small village on the banks of the Penna river. As in other districts of
Andhra Pradesh, Kadapa too has a rich heritage of handloom weavers.
In Conversation with a weaver from Madhavaram who left weaving in 1985 to run his own
handloom shop, he says that he only knows about his generation of weavers and that of his
father and family members who used to weave. Their children are educated and have
opted for other jobs.
Dhupion Silk – Srikanth Proddathuru – 9985142264
The National Handloom Expo 2022 held in Vijayawada in March had a big participation from
Proddatur weaver societies. They have a variety of fabrics from cotton and silk sarees,
dupion fabric, livery items, shirting and dress material in the 80s or 100s. One of the
societies is being upskilled in jacquard.
Below is a video of Ramanjaneya silk weavers cooperative society, Proddatur participating
in the Golconda Craft Bazaar, Telangana. Govindrajulu, who is the president of the society
speaks about direct sales of the products at reasonable prices due to subsidies given by the
government.
According to him the earlier weaves were coarse cloth, then madhavaram cotton sarees
came with plain body color and medium zari borders with pallu worn by the elderly women.
Pochampally weave was also tried out in the district but now most of the weavers only make
Venkatagiri sarees in sico. In his younger days he had woven in 120 counts, but now they
are finding it difficult to weave even 100 so most are restricting to 80 counts.
Jammalamadugu cluster have a large number of societies, producing cotton and silk
sarees, uniform material in 80 count and some make immitation of Uppada buta sarees.
Dommara Nandyala, Mykaduru, Veparala, Moragudi are some of the other clusters yet to
be explored.
