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STORY OF WEAVING COMMUNITY OF BETAGERI

(GADAG DISTRICT)

Shruti S Patil
PG 1- M.Arch (Habitat Design)
Advanced theory of design: architecture and human settlements, theory of urbanism – 18HDC13
B M S College of Architecture
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STORY OF THE WEAVING COMMUNITY OF BETAGERI (GADAG DISTRICT)

Shruti S Patil
BMS College of Architecture

Abstract: Betageri’s handloom industry holds a successful history of two centuries now,
engaging twenty thousand people in this profession. This paper reports on the various varieties of
silk and cotton blended sarees produced by the cluster, which also has a good market value in
India.
The paper will focus on housing typology & mills and their spatial relationship in the built
environment. Few case studies carried out to understand the architectural principles involved in
the building and construction of the weaving houses. Methods taken care to prevent the noise
produced by the looms, through conventional building techniques are outstanding, Houses being
generations old, the materials used in the construction process with respect to climatology is
commendable. The space management of the conventional house and these looms in the same
given space is quite efficient.
Paper also talks about manufacturing detail, laborers involved, marketing aspects and facilities
provided to power loom units. The study will also explain the present-day scenario of the cluster
which is reduced to 15% of the total workers due to lack of expertise and that leads to frequent
migration.
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STORY OF THE WEAVING COMMUNITY OF BETAGERI (GADAG DISTRICT)

LOCATION AND INTRODUCTION TO HANDLOOM INDUSTRY

Gadag is a town in the Karnataka state of India.

Gadag and its sister city Betageri have combined
administrative headquarters Gadag-district.

The handloom industry in India is an ancient

cottage industry, occupies a unique place in the
Indian economy, besides being the largest
generator of rural employment next to agriculture.
The industry employs about 13% of the country’s
textile production.

Some of the traditional handloom centers like

Malegaon, Ichalkaranji in Maharashtra, Burhanpur
in MP, Karimnagar in AP, Erode and Salem in
Tamil Nadu, Belgaum, Gadag-Betageri in
Karnataka, have now become power loom centers.

The handloom industry of Karnataka is ancient

and important. Its story is no different from elsewhere in the country; from flourishing state
under the monarchy, revival by swadeshi movement and reinforced by central and state
government after independence.

There is a legend about Gadag that if you throw a stone in town it would either land at a printing
press or on a handloom. Since the last two centuries, Gadag-Betageri is known for its weaving
and fabric producing industry. Betageri is famous for its good quality and authentic production
on mercerized cotton and silk and hence the name Batti-geri – present-day Betageri gets its name
for cloth production.

The different sarees produced are Gadi-Dhadi border, Redcolour Top theni pallu like famous
Ilkal saree, Chikki-paras, skirt border Thodi-Paras, Kare-Chandrakali, Chandrang-Chikki, Star
saree, and Ghomi-Cotton. Hubli saree – noolin saree, mercerai saree, silk, and cotton mix – Ilkal
saree and Thode paras. Presently the designs are also being incorporated to emphasize in the
saree production.
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MANUFACTURING DETAILS

TYPES OF LOOMS:
Earlier a type of handloom – Kunimagga was used, where the person could sit in a pit and weave
the saree, this handloom was improvised to automatic magga (locally called as Yetrana magga)
where the person sits at a higher level for comfortable production of the saree.Presently these
handlooms are replaced by power loom due to lack of laborers or vice-versa.

PIT LOOM HANDLOOM

PEDAL LOOM AUTOMATIC POWER LOOM

WARP AND WEFT POWER LOOM – SITE IMAGE

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WEAVERS HOUSING TYPOLOGY – Apart from conventional vernacular housing that

happens in the cluster, there is additional hall dedicated for the provision of the magga
(handloom/power loom) which is installed inside the house – dimension of room for one loom is
9’x4’, loom with dying machine requires – 15’x10’ (combination of two units) which is as good
as two loom’s dimension, single unit is 7’6”x 10’in dimension.

SITE STUDY – BETAGERI

Below are some weaving community houses happening in Betageri,

9” Thk wall Power loom 15” Thk wall

HOUSE NO 1: FLOOR PLAN

Skylight
Wooden sticks

Wooden Rafter
Beam
ROOF PLAN ELEVATION - A
CASE STUDY - HOUSE NO: 1
The house is linear in plan, 65% of space dedicated to weaving activity and 35% of space for
normal day to day household activity.
This house had a series of halls; the entrance hall towards road consists of a power loom, kanaki
spinning machine and charka for spinning bobbins.
The adjacent hall has four power looms as shown in the plan. The walls of these halls are 15”
thick, to prevent the loud noise produced by these power looms from entering the neighboring
house.
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The actual habitual space for household activity is zoned at the rear end of the site. It’s consists
of a huge hall and undefined kitchen space, a 7’x11’ small bedroom and a puja room. The bath
and toilet room happen in the backyard of the house.
The roof is a combination of two layers, above RCC concrete slab, below layer consisting of
vertical wooden sticks and horizontal wooden rafters structurally support by beams. Flooring is
slate stone.
Light and ventilation happen through door, window, ventilator, and skylight provided in the
roofing.
Elevation A shows the halls dedicated to weaving activity. The door height is 6’ high, the
windows are 3’x2’ with ventilator 3’x1’6” happening above chajja level, which brings in natural
light and air into space.
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HALL

POWER
LOOM

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

HOUSE NO 2: GROUND FLOOR PLAN

ROOF PLAN
VIEW

CASE STUDY - HOUSE NO: 2

House is built in traditional style, with a sloped roof, thick wooden door, and windows, a
massive threshold. This is very much evident that this oldest house existing in the area.
Rectangular in the plan, 13’x21’ in dimension. It has two levels, ground floor and first floor
connected by a traditional wooden staircase.
Ground floor, where 80% of space is dedicated to weaving activity and 20% of space is given out
to the kitchen. The ground floor accommodates 3 looms linearly; place in next to each other.
The walls are 15” thk composite masonry wall with brick plaster inside and stone on the outside.
The second floor accessed through a traditional wooden staircase consists of a storeroom and hall
for power loom and a bedroom. Also, a linear balcony, that brings in abundant natural light and
ventilation into space.
The roof is the same as house 1, The roof is a combination of RCC concrete slab with below
layer with wooden battens used instead of wooden sticks and horizontal wooden rafters, with
beams running vertically for structural support.
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The windows here have varying sill height inconvenience with the internal activities. The door
height is not more than 6’high.
The flooring is slate tiles to suit the hot and dry climate of the place, in addition to easy
maintenance.

CASE STUDY: HOUSE NO 3

POWER
LOOMS

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

HOUSE NO 3: GROUND FLOOR PLAN
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House 3 is square in plan with entrance hall for looms leading to kitchen at the rear end. The
kitchen is flanked by puja room at one end and bath on the other. Again the 70% of the house is
dedicated to weaving activity and 30% belongs to household work.
Flight of steps leads to first floor, where 50% of the space is used for spinning and yarning
process and adjacent rooms to this hall are used as bedroom and store.

The roof is made of RCC slab and a

layer of slate stones held by wooden
rafters run both horizontal and
vertical direction.
The life span for this kind of roof is
300 plus years.
The wall thickness remains the same
throughout i.e. 15”.
The door window heights are as per
standards – door 7’, window height
3; sill at 2’. ROOF PLAN
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CASE STUDY: MILL NO 1

Mill 1 is rectangular in plan, 13’x25’, 15” thick wall houses four power looms one next to each
other as shown in the plan. This space is solely dedicated to weaving activity.

ROOF PLAN

MILL NO 1: PLAN

The newly available weaving machine costs 1.3lac, while old machines are available at 40,000 -
50,000 rupees as told by the owner of the mill.
The roof same as House 2, the roof is a combination of RCC concrete slab with a below layer
with vertical wooden battens and horizontal wooden rafters, with beams running vertically for
structural support.
Flooring is slate stone, with standard door and window heights. The wall is stone cladding a
climate-responsive solution for the hot and dry climate.

CASE STUDY: MILL NO 2

Mill 2 is linear in plan, 52’x18’ in dimension, one of the largest mills in the area.
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Houses every aspect of the weaving process, where one can learn about the subject in detail.
Follows the standards of wall thickness, door, window height, and roof design.

MILL NO 2: GROUND
FLOOR PLAN

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

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LAYOUT OF WEAVING COMMUNITY

WEAVING COMMUNITY
The weaving activity happens mostly within the residence and does not encroach the street as
such. The non-weaving houses here are the ones that carried out this weaving activity earlier
until the 1980s where the shift from handloom to power loom occurred. Along with the weaving
houses, these formed a weaving community and were eminent produces of cotton and silk sarees.
Currently, about 15% of these communities continue to practice this weaving activity. In case of
the residences which practice, one or two of the total number of power looms are not put to use
because of the unavailability of the laborers.
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PROCESS
Firstly, the white yarn was dyed to the required color; earlier the dye was manufactured locally,
which was time-consuming and took a lot of effort by the weaver. Which is now modified to
color cones, (color cone is yarn of respective color) helps to save time and labor work.
Secondly, warp and wept are two basic components of weaving, which is winded to beam to turn
yarn into fabric, especially used in the manufacturing of Gadi-dadi border cotton saree.
Third, Yarn reeled/filled is to gajja and processed – this process is locally called vaipeni.
Third, for example, 2800 yarns are usually loaded – Reading shown at the time of weaving by
the machine itself. Reads have 42" panna which requires 60 yarns to be full. The calculation is
made as per the reading is shown by the machine.
For example – 1) 1” patti – 64 number of yarns is required to be loaded.
2) Dadi will require 400 yarns to be loaded at a time through warping
Lastly, after the vaipeni is ready, this is tied to magga and weaving is carried out to produce the
saree.
This involves processing (thododu), reeling (suthodu), preparing vaipeni, tying to magga and
setting up the weaving machine to weave the final product.

RAW MATERIAL
The raw material such as cotton is imported from Coimbatore; Number 40 yarn is used for both
processing and weaving in the manufacturing process. Silk is usually bought from Bengaluru and
Chikkballpura which is imported from Chamrajnagar – well known as Reshme naadu. Silk
mixed with cotton is used in the manufacturing of Ilkal sarees and Thodi-Paras sarees.

LABOR
The laborers involved in the industry were from local Betageri itself and they were trained to
learn the skills of weaving and produce good results. Since these laborers come from poor
families, they were highly dependent on the industry to earn their everyday bread and butter.
Presently there are training centers set up by the government in Bengaluru and Doddaballapura.

Labor wages either would be based on the number of sarees manufactured by the person, say if
the saree cost was around 1300Rs, the labor would be paid around 100-150, which is considered
to the highest wage paid in Betageri when compared to the payment in other North Karnataka
districts.
Or the owner would pay advance to employ them for a particular number of months/years.
In the case of handloom, the laborer can weave one saree per day and will carry out the process
in shade itself. Apart from the daily wages, no other facilities were provided by the owner, but
currently, the government is in the planning process to provide a monthly pension for those who
have worked and retired.
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DEMAND: SEASON-WAR
The demand for these sarees is seasonal – April to June there is greater demand and absence of
expert weaver because of the marriage season. July, August, and September no demand because
of ashadmasa, slack of market. More production in the cluster. In October November there is
more demand for sarees and less expert weaver because of the festival. December to March,
fewer sales and more production in the cluster. This is the situation of seasonal demand for the
product and lack of expert weaver is termed as Season – war.
During the season the customers buy directly from the weaver’s house, but during the slack of
the market, the weaver sells the product to shops in the market at a little lesser price than the
actual price. Gadag-Betageri the clusters were well known for the production of Gadi – dadi
saree, noolin saree, Ilkal saree, Thode paras, Chikki Paras. Be it any house in the clusters, the
customer finds these 5 major types of sarees, because of this fact any marketing of the same was
not required.
Marketing of Gadi-dadi saree is quite famous in regions of north Karnataka like Dharwad, Hubli
Saudatti, Belgavi, Ramdurga, Surebaana, Badami, Koppal , Munavalli districts.
Ilkal and Thodi Paras saree has demand in north Karnataka, and Maharastra.

THE SHIFT FROM HANDLOOM TO POWER LOOM

The handlooms were replaced by power looms in l968-70s. Earlier the power looms were located
outside the city and only in 1975-76, were allowed inside the city with permission of
municipality for the weavers who beard the license from HESCOM. This resulted in less usage
of handlooms lowering it down to 10% of the overall manufacturing units. The laborer using
handloom can weave two saree per day. Labor wages involved in power loom are less compared
to the case of handloom.

PROBLEMS FACED BY CURRENT-DAY WEAVING COMMUNITY

1. Due to the introduction of the power loom, where the owner would get done the work by
employing just one labor instead of four, the labor rate decreased. The weavers too migrated for
education purposes and various other job opportunities, the weaving owners now had no choice
but to rely upon power looms.
2. There was also a decline in the marketing of cotton and silk sarees because the copies of the
same were produced in polyester at a 50% lesser price than the authentic sarees, which is why
the handloom industry is losing its importance and the sale of original sarees is diminishing.
3. The graph of customers buying original sarees thus reduced and the market of the weaving
community declined. Sales became less. If a factory had 10 looms; at least 3 of them were shut
down. Due to which both owners and laborers are in huge trouble.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. gadag.nic.in/en/about-district
2. www.veethi.com/places/karnataka-gadag-district-73.htm
3. 1.P.R, K. (2008, September).
A_success_story_on_variaties_of_traditional_sarees_in_Betgeri_Karnataka_cluster.
4. 2.(2012). Traditional-Saree-Weaving-In-Betgeri-Gadag-Cluster.
5. Report on “Growth and Prospects of Handloom Industry” by Study Commissioned by
planning of India – Seemanthani Niranjana, Soumya Vinayan for Dastkar Andhra (2001)
6. Lakshmi Narasaiah M “Economics on Handloom Industry”, New Delhi, Sonali
Publications.P.I (2004)
7. Word of mouth – ToppannaVenkatesh Pindakuru resident of Gadag-Betageri belonging
to weaving community.