The micro handloom enterprises in India are largely home-based enterprises but play an important role in the Indian economy. In spite of the challenges faced, the handloom sector has shown great resilience in surviving and sustaining over the decades by maintaining a 20-25% share of the total textile production and been the second largest employer in India. The northeastern states of India have the largest concentration of handlooms in the country with more than 65% of the total looms. This paper studies the various aspects of handloom production such as production processes, the number and type of looms owned, their capacity utilization and so on in the traditionally run micro handloom enterprises in the Thenzawl cluster, a remote tribal cluster predominantly run by women entrepreneurs, located in Mizoram. The paper suggests development activities to be undertaken in the cluster to enable the enterprises to sustain and grow.

Often considered as the vestige of the traditional sector, the handloom sector not only represents the rich heritage of India, but is also the second largest employment provider after agriculture and has shown great resilience in surviving and sustaining over the ages. There are nearly 27.83 lakh handloom households engaged in weaving and allied activities, out of which 87% are located in rural India. About 10% handloom households belong to the Scheduled Castes (SCs), 22% to Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 41% to Other Backward Castes (OBCs). The handloom workforce comprises predominantly of women (77.4% of the total workforce) and most of the female workers are located in rural areas. The northeastern states of India have the largest concentration of handlooms in the country (more than 65% of the total looms) and among the total handloom workers, 21.56 lakh (about 50%) belong to the northeastern states. Assam has the largest number of looms in the region, followed by Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. However, a majority (62%) of the looms in the northeastern states are engaged in domestic production only. Mizoram has a handloom workforce of 43,528 persons working on 23,938 looms (NCAER, 2010).

Thenzawl, a hamlet located in Serchhip District of Mizoram, has developed as a handloom cluster with about 205 micro-enterprises operating in the cluster. Interestingly, 98% of the entrepreneurs in the cluster are women. Creditably, these tribal women have chosen to be entrepreneurs operating their looms on a commercial basis rather than be wage earners unlike their counterparts in Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. It was observed during the field study that most of the entrepreneurs were operating their looms in their homes, i.e., these enterprises were mostly being run as traditional enterprises (Ramswamy and Jyoti, 2010). Moreover, it was observed that about 70% of the sample enterprises owned less than four looms and almost 45% of the sample enterprises owned only one or two looms.

Operations Management Journal, Handloom Production, Tribal Clusters, Case Study of Thenzawl in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram.