In Angara, in Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema district, Balla Koteswara Rao and Balla Janaki spend more than 13 hours at their loom to weave one saree. After paying for warp and weft, they say the work leaves them with only ₹250 to ₹300 a day. Payments for finished sarees can arrive one or two months late, Koteswara Rao says, describing delays that have continued for more than a year.

The couple’s experience reflects a wider cash-flow problem across Andhra Pradesh’s handloom cooperatives. The National Federation of Handlooms and Handicrafts (NFHH), which has worked with weavers in the state since 1988, says ₹265.09 crore owed by the state government to APCO and handloom societies has remained unpaid since 2016. APCO, the state cooperative body that procures and distributes handloom products, in turn owes societies for goods supplied.

The sector has a substantial workforce but a contracting cooperative base. The 2019–2020 All India Handloom Census counted 127,662 weavers and 49,785 allied workers in Andhra Pradesh. The state has about 415 handloom cooperative societies, but only around 200 are active, according to NFHH president Macherla Mohan Rao. He estimates the number of weavers has since fallen to about 95,000.

Cooperatives were designed to give artisans access to raw materials, a route to market and more reliable wages, reducing dependence on master weavers and middlemen. Their finances depend on a cycle: societies borrow from district cooperative banks to buy materials, members weave the products, and the societies repay loans after sales and reimbursements arrive. When APCO or government departments pay late, that cycle stalls and interest costs accumulate.

Weavers and society representatives link the strain to unpaid or discontinued support, including the Paavala Vaddi scheme, the Thrift Fund and subsidies on yarn and other raw materials. Government orders in 2019 provided for raising the handloom rebate from 20% to 30%, increasing the state contribution to the Thrift Fund from 8% to 16%, and raising yarn subsidies from 20% to 40%. Weavers say the announced increases were not implemented after the change of government, while the state contribution to the Thrift Fund stopped in 2019.

The arrears extend beyond the cooperatives. NFHH figures cited in the account put APCO’s outstanding claims against government departments at ₹90.53 crore, including ₹2.97 crore from Social Welfare, ₹20.33 crore from Tribal Welfare, ₹9.99 crore from Backward Classes Welfare and ₹12.59 crore from Health, Medical and Family Welfare. The report also says APCO supplied products to government schools while awaiting payment. The state’s total reported dues to APCO and societies are higher because they include other amounts accumulated over several years.

At one society in Konaseema, a manager says the government owes ₹3 crore and that more than ₹70 lakh has gone toward loan interest. The Polavaram society says it is owed ₹52 lakh. Its sales reached ₹1.19 crore last year against production costs of ₹1.07 crore, but the manager says the bonus distributed to members has fallen from ₹10,000 to ₹900. Elsewhere, the Devi Vijayambika society in Pedana has dwindled from about 30 weavers to five.

Some artisans have left for agricultural work or become employees of master weavers. In October 2025, weavers in Angara staged a 16-day relay hunger strike seeking immediate payment; a promised resolution had not changed their situation by the time of the report. Cooperative governance is also unresolved: elections have not been held since 2013, and officials have been managing the societies since the elected bodies’ five-year terms ended in 2018. The Handlooms Department’s chief special secretary said elections would follow local body polls; the report said there had been no response on the status of the outstanding payments.