ABOUT ODOP

INTRODUCTION:

 

 

Venkatagiri sarees are generally made of cotton, silk mix, pure silk that are weaved mostly on the traditional pit looms. These sarees are mostly woven with art of Jamdani weaving followed from about 14 generations. It is believed during the time of Venkatagiri Raja, this art of weaving started. Now about 3064 Households of Venkatagiri are involved in the making of the classic Venkatagiri saree. Previously the people from the caste of Padmashali & Devanga communities were mostly involved in this work, nowadays other people are also part of this work. The craftsmen from five generations are involved in the making of this Venkatagiri sarees. As Venkatagiri is a small village of the Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh. 

           Pure zari threads are brought from Kanchipuram, artificial zari threads mostly ordered from Surat with a cost ranging between Rs. 300 to RS. 3000 as per the pattern of the design.  The adai system is followed for the insertion of the Jamdani work on the loom. 

 

 

 

HISTORY:

 

It is said that the weaving at Venkatagiri first originated over 300 years ago and was patronized by the Velugoti dynasty. A group of about 40 weavers were.supported by the Velugoti dynasty for the exclusive purpose of weaving dhoti and turbans made of soft cotton, with sophisticated embroidery to the Royal family. Gradually, the weavers started moving into saree making which was exclusively. made for the queens, royal women and other zamindaris. The erstwhile kingdomsof Bobbli and Pithapuram also encouraged the making of Venkatagiri sarees.

However now the sarees are woven for public consumption. In Venkatagiri there are about 40,000 inhabitants of which about 20,000 are weavers. The houses are neatly arranged in rows, and almost every house has  30 loom, the entire family is involved in the weaving process in Venkatagiri making                                                                                                                                                                               the town inhabited by a weaving community.

ONE DISTRICT ONE PRODUCT INITIATIVE:

Venkatagiri  Sarees are known for there  fine weaving and most durable sarees by use pit looms  which are fixed in the ground level in their weaving. the weavers mainly produce sarees of zaricotton,Cotton and Silkmix,and pure silk .  Recently the weavers are use Jamdani technique from Bangladesh added to the variety of the Venkatagiri Sarees An award winners of  VenkatagiriSaree in Jamdanidesign  and SantKabir Award recipients of weavers of  won the National Awards by using jamdhanitecnic in Venkatagiri Sarees.

In this context to promote India,s rich and diverse cultural heritage under“ONE DISTRICT ONEPRODUCT”(ODOP)  Venkatagiri sarees are identified.And also  it was registered as one of the geographical indicationAct1999.

Geographical Location: The art of weaving Venaktagiri Sarees is practiced at Bangarupeta, Manulalpeta, Ranipeta, Molasaliveedhi, Mallammatemple street, palliveedi, NTR colony, B.C. Colony, Tholimitta, Kampalem and in the neighboring villages of the Venkatagiri town, of Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. In the Venkatagiri town the art of weaving is practiced at 3064 households, on around 2500 looms.

 

 

Tools and Raw Materials:

Some of the tools and raw materials basically used for making of Venkatagiri saree are shown as below.

Raw Materials,

• Cotton yarn	– Cotton yarns of generally high quality are generally preferred.
• Silk yarns	– Pure or Art silk yarns are preferred as per the cost at which it is made.
• Zari	– Pure or Artificial zari threads are used as per customer’s request.

Tools used are,

• Charkha	– It is an equipment that winds the yarns on to the pirns.
• Spools	– It is used to input the Jamdani designs in the weaving process.
• Scissors	– It is used to cut out the unrequired yarns.

• Shuttle (Paggu)	– Generally used to supplement the weft yarn into the loom.
• Pit Loom	– To interlace the warp and weft yarns.

 

Product are procured from Coimbatore & NHDC. The ODOP product is woven in pure cotton , silk or a combination of both to weave the sarees.

 

 

Zari Weft Bobbins – Antique Gold and silver zari is used for the                                      

Extra weft motifs and borders which gives the sarees a rich look                                         

 

 

Punch cards– The punch cards are used for jacquard motifs on a loom.

This gives an all over design in short

Shuttle– This boat like structure is used to carry the weft from one end to other end of warp                                 

 

 Weft bobbins– The weft yarn is winded in bobbins

 

Fibre to Fabric process–

Venkatagiri sarees are mostly of one to two inch wide with gold border, it has a unique characteristic of woven combinations of zari and cotton threads. Designs on the borders are locally called Patti, which are nothing but dotted lines alongside the golden bands. These are also known as high quality muslins with high thread counts. Though they are transparent with their most saturated colour of yarn dyed with hues such as purple, orange, olive green, bright green, bright red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raw material – The yarn is washed and desized for dyeing. The desizing is removal of starch from the yarns to make it softer and absorbable of dye.

 

 

Dyeing – Venkatagiri Sarees are essentially made of pure cotton, with elaborate zari work on them, with characteristic colours. The characteristic Venkatagiri saree is made of pure cotton, dyed using vat or Napthol dyes. The colours are bold, and do not run when the sarees are washed or soaked. This is largely attributed to the quality of the water in that region. Special care is taken to ensure that the water used for dyeing and treating the yarn is soft water.,

 

Warping – The process of warping includes the detangling the yarns and to form a uniform warping with no damaged yarns. The warps yarns are loaded on to big bobbins and later are sent for wheel warping to form the warp layout of the saree. The weft bobbins are also made using the charkha winding.

 

Street sizing – The process includes the stiffening of the warp yarns with rice starch or pulse starch. This process helps in coating a thin layer of starch over the yarns to avoid them from breakage during the weaving.

 

Piecing – The technique of applying starch on the healds of the shafts to hold the warp thread is known as piecing.  

Shuttle loading – The weft bobbins are loaded into a boat like structure that is known as shuttle which is carried from one end to their in the warp threads horizontally and that helps in interlacement of yarn

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weaving – The sized warp yarns are then loaded on to the warp beam and further to the loom. The threads are pass through the healds which results in sectional warping of the yarn. The weft when passed through the two sections of the warp causes the interlacement of the yarns.

 

The prominence of Extraweft (jamdani) technique in ODOP Product:

The extra weft technique of Venkatagiri saree is very different like from that of a any other handloom variety. The jamdani technique of Venkatagiri saree is usually a nerve wrecking process as many intricate motifs can be woven onto the saree. The Venkatagiri saree is the ritualistic textile as mythical stories are woven onto the fabric. The technique is used to weave curvilinear motifs and can take a long time to weave as well. But this technique of extra weft has increased the demand of the Venkatagiri sarees internationally and nationally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jacquard Lifting Machines – The saree is woven on a traditional fly shuttle pit loom. The shuttles used for weaving are comparatively longer to the other fly shuttles Jacquard is used for weaving of extra weft designs. Zari is used in extra weft for ornamentation of the designs. The mechanism involved the use of thousands of punch cards laced together. Each row of punched holes corresponded to a row of a textile

Products-

Venkatagiri sarees are usually found with various motifs, like of peacocks, rudraksha, beetle leaves, gold coins, flowers, buds, parrots, fish and geometric designs. These sarees are usually found of cotton with broad zari border, cotton with thin zari border, cotton with silk, Venkatagiri silk saree etc. They generally measure around 5.18 mtrs of length and 1.17 meters of width.                 

The cost of a simple Venkatagiri cotton saree with zari borders to a pure Venkatagiri silk saree varies from Rs.1300 to Rs.7000. Some of the varieties commonly found are Venkatagiri Pattu, Venkatagiri silk and Venkatagiri 100 is considered the lightest of them and very popular. They vary with light colour to dark shaded colours with light or heavy Jamdani works on them.

PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS:

• Type of Saree : Cotton Jamdhani sarees 
• Weaving Type: Plain Weaving
• Warp: 100s
• Weft: 100s
• Length: 5.25 Mts
• Width: 47”
• Loom Weavers: 1 member
• Allied Workers:02
• No of Days : 3/4 days usually
• Saree wages to Weavers: 1800 Cost of sarees: 30000

 

 

 

PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS:

• Type of Saree : VenkatagiriSilk saree
• Weaving Type: Plain Weaving
• Warp: 20-22 D Silk
• Weft: 20-22 D Silk
• Length: 5.25 Mts
• Width: 50”
• Loom Weavers : 1 member
• Allied Workers:02
• No of Days : 5 days usually
• Saree wages to Weavers: 2000 to 4000
• Cost of sarees : 6000 to 25000.