Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath opened the 50th edition of the India Carpet Expo in Bhadohi on Sunday, the golden jubilee of the fair that brings overseas buyers to the carpet belt just west of Varanasi. On the same visit he inaugurated and laid the foundation of 112 development projects in the district, which the Chief Minister's Office put at more than Rs 1,340 crore.
According to figures the Chief Minister gave at the expo, more than 227 exhibitors and over 450 foreign buyers from 65 countries are taking part this year. He said 106 of those buyers come from BRICS countries. The Chief Minister walked through the exhibition on the venue and spoke with carpet exporters, sellers and leading figures from the trade.
In his address, as posted by his office, Adityanath said the government had linked talent with infrastructure, the artisan with skill, the entrepreneur with the market and local products with global demand. He also said that Sant Ravidas Nagar and the silk cluster were now exporting goods worth Rs 6,100 crore, and that the benefit was reaching artisans, handicraft workers and people employed in the carpet industry.
For readers in Varanasi, the expo is close to home in more ways than distance. Bhadohi was carved out of Varanasi district in 1994 as Sant Ravidas Nagar, and the hand-knotted carpet trade that runs through Bhadohi, Mirzapur and the western edge of Varanasi has long drawn weavers, dyers, finishers and exporters from across the region.
The second announcement that will be followed closely in Varanasi concerns higher education. The Chief Minister said Kashi Naresh University had been established in Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi in line with a demand that local people had been making for years. According to the statements from Sunday, the process of attaching all of the district's colleges to the new university has been completed, and young people in Bhadohi will now receive their degrees in its name.
The name carries a direct link to Varanasi. Kashi Naresh is the title of the former rulers of Benares, whose seat is Ramnagar Fort on the other bank of the Ganga from the city. The Kashi Naresh Government Postgraduate College at Gyanpur in Bhadohi, set up in 1951 with buildings and funds given by the then Raja of Banaras, Vibhuti Narain Singh, already carries the name, and its website lists Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith in Varanasi as its affiliating university. No details of the university's campus, vice-chancellor or first academic session were given on Sunday.
On the carpet trade, the Chief Minister listed what he described as the supports now in place. These included the geographical indication tag for Bhadohi carpets, the One District One Product scheme, the Carpet Expo Mart facility in Bhadohi, backing from the Carpet Export Promotion Council, which organises the expo, and the Indian Institute of Carpet Technology in the district. He also referred to the PM MITRA textile park planned on about 1,000 acres between Lucknow and Hardoi.
Adityanath also announced a plan for a Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Employment and Industrial Zone in every district of the state. His office did not publish a timeline, a budget or a list of the first districts, so the proposal stands for now as an announcement. The same is true of the full breakdown of the 112 projects, which was not part of the posts from the Chief Minister's Office.
At the project event, the Chief Minister went round stalls set up by government departments and handed benefits under various welfare schemes to eligible beneficiaries. The state Information and Public Relations Department, in its own post, described the expo as a showcase of fine craftsmanship, modern innovation and the region's carpet weaving tradition, open to global buyers and exhibitors.
The visit came a day after the Chief Minister reviewed arrangements for the Indian Air Force display on the Ganga, which Dalimss covered in its report on the Namo Ghat air show review and police plan. Manufacturing in the wider region has also been in the news this week, with a senior Railway Board member inspecting the locomotive shops at Banaras Locomotive Works on Saturday.
For the weaving families of Bhadohi and the villages along the Varanasi border, the fair matters for a simpler reason. Orders placed by visiting buyers during the expo shape how much work reaches the looms in the months that follow. By the government's count, the 50th edition has opened with buyers from 65 countries in the halls, and the trade will judge it by the orders they leave behind.
