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About Mubarakpur

The handloom sector stands as a venerable custodian of India's rich and vibrant cultural heritage. As the second-largest employment provider in the country, it significantly engages women weavers. This offers huge potential of the sector towards economic empowerment of women. Uttar Pradesh stands as a prominent hub for handloom in India, ranking 3rd in textile production, 5th largest base of handloom in India and leading in handmade carpet production and export. With over 7 lakh weavers operating 1.1 lakh handlooms in naturally evolved clusters, the state boasts a rich tradition spanning centuries. Uttar Pradesh has 15 major handloom production centres. Mubarakpur, a small town in Azamgarh district, particularly excels as a major cluster for handmade silk sarees.

Popularly known as the ‘village of weavers’, Mubarakpur has nurtured a tradition of crafting pure silk sarees with zari work. Predominantly being practised by women within households, this art has been passed down through generations since the 14th century. Traditional motifs, meticulously hand-crafted in distinct patterns, offer exclusivity and narrate compelling stories of local customs, beliefs, and folklore.

Despite the novelty, handloom sector is mired with challenges, primarily competing with the price advantage and shorter production time offered by power looms. Moreover, it operates in an unorganized manner, with weavers often coming from low-income backgrounds and lacking financial literacy and banking inclusion. These weavers have limited awareness and access to government schemes and formal credit systems that force them into vicious debt cycles. Additionally, they lack marketing & networking acumen, limiting their ability to diversify their customer base.

Women weavers face further exploitation due to patriarchal social norms, denying them artistry recognition, financial autonomy, and decision-making. The 1,200 women weavers in Mubarakpur are working in silos, influenced by male-dominated households, lacking representation and a voice at the cluster or collective level.

How To Reach

Mubarakpur is located at 26° 09’ North latitude and 83° 29’ East longitude at a distance of 13 kilometers northeast of the district headquarters Azamgarh in the state of Uttar Pradesh. There are number of ways to travel to Mubarakpur from New Delhi. Namely:

By air: A flight for Varanasi is a very convenient way to travel. It takes about one hour and twenty minutes to land from New Delhi. And further the journey can be made by road in about three hours covering a distance of 113km.

By air: Lucknow airport is 301km away from Mubarakpur and it would take 6 hours to cover that distance. The flight takes about 1 hour to land

By train: Kaifiyat Express, Godan Express, Utsarg Express and Sabarmati Express are some trains that travel from New Delhi to Azamgarh. The journey could be covered in 15-16 hours. One can start i

By road: Buses from New Delhi to Azamgarh are easily available which will reach their destination in 13 hours.

The weave+ pilot

This pilot initiative aims at strengthening of the value chain of women weavers in Mubarakpur and instil entrepreneurial and leadership skills among them. Under the initiative, PCI India has partnered with PROACT to provide technical assistance to the Government of Uttar Pradesh (GoUP) under a four-pronged approach:

1. A technology centric Operational Research for enlisting and mobilizing the socially excluded weavers of Mubarakpur that will support in designing customized policy choices. The key findings will surface on decision support portal of Government of Uttar Pradesh. This will be benchmark study.

2. Work towards securing the rights and entitlements of weavers, directly rather than through weavers’ cooperative societies, and realization of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) with introduction to formal banking inclusion and credit systems. This will also include a technology platform integrated with the flagship ultra-poor program and Banking Correspondent (BC) Sakhi program of Government of Uttar Pradesh. This will lead to increased uptake of social protection schemes among women weavers with increased awareness and promotion insurance policy & products.

3. Branding & Marketing secondary study initiatives as well as financing initiatives; credit linkage & service delivery e-reports.

4. Institution Development in the form of Producer Group expanded to accommodate institutionalized processes of relevant project intervention in terms of thematic and gender-driven working units.

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