The Surat Art Silk Cloth Manufacturers Association

About Us

The existence of the Industry in Surat dates back to 1925. During the Mogul reign on account of perfect trade policy the Kinkhab weavers of Surat were artisan themselves producing intricate designs on handlooms with silk and jari. At that time a large number of handlooms were functioning at this center and raw silk as well as jari threads were the main raw materials for manufacture of textiles. Gradually with the invention of electricity, young entrepreneurs engaged in this Industry converted handloom to power driven and later on installed the power looms discarded by the Cotton Mills commenced production after certain modifications so as to make them suitable for manufacturing pure silk fabrics and with this change over, the production increased rapidly, the quality improved significantly, physical labour and strains were reduced to some extent and ultimately resulted in higher earnings for the power loom weavers. In fact the Industry's structure resembles to that of the Cottage Industry System prevalent in Japan. It was domestic Industry where there were 1,500 units and the members of the family usually maintained themselves by working on an average 8 power looms each. They hardly employ any other staff. Thus the power looms were more or less being dispersed into small decentralized units.