Chief Minister's Indigenous Textile Promotion Scheme (CMITPS)

What is the Chief Minister's Indigenous Textile Promotion Scheme?

Chief Minister's Indigenous Textile Promotion Scheme (CMITPS) is a state-funded handloom support programme of the Government of Arunachal Pradesh, run by the Department of Textile and Handicrafts. District Textile and Handicrafts pages, Lohit, Anjaw, Changlang and Papum Pare among them: describe CMITPS as the flagship programme of the Chief Minister, initiated in the year 2013-14, to promote the indigenous textile designs and products of the state's tribes. The scheme is often written locally as CMIPTS, and readers will find both spellings on government pages; both refer to the same programme.

The problem CMITPS was created to solve is stated plainly on the Anjaw district page: the most ethnic and ancient textile designs of the various tribes are on the verge of extinction. Arunachal Pradesh has 26 major tribes, each with its own loom-woven motifs, colour combinations and garment forms. The weavers who still know those motifs are frequently among the poorest households in their village, and the single input they cannot afford in quantity is good yarn.

CMITPS answers that with a benefit given in kind, not in cash. The Department of Textile and Handicrafts procures fine-quality yarn: cotton in some years, acrylic in others, and distributes it free to selected weavers from the poorer sections of society, so that they can weave traditional cloth of the local community, sell it, and earn more from the skill they already have.

Who runs CMITPS and how does it fit with other handloom schemes?

The Department of Textile and Handicrafts, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, is the nodal department. At the state level it works from the Directorate of Textiles and Handicrafts in Itanagar; in each district it works through an Assistant Director or Deputy Director, Textile and Handicrafts, supported by Craft Superintendents who run government craft centres, weaving centres, sericulture farms and sales emporiums. Changlang district alone reports 2 government craft centres, 5 government weaving centres, 5 government sericulture farms and 3 government sales emporiums.

CMITPS sits alongside several other programmes the same department administers, and it helps to know which is which:

• CMITPS: state scheme, free yarn and, in some years, improved looms.
• Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Bunkar Yojana (DDUBY), credit-linked. Papum Pare records Rs 2 lakh in bank assistance per weaver; Changlang reports 60 weavers assisted with bank loans.
• NERTPS (North Eastern Regional Textile Promotion Scheme): central scheme, largely sericulture and cluster development.
• MUDRA loans; working capital for weavers through banks.
• Common infrastructure grant; Papum Pare records Rs 25 lakh per cooperative society for women weavers' collectives.
• Handloom Cluster Development — including yarn depots run at regional mill gate price, for example in Jairampur and Changlang.

According to the Chief Minister's statement at the 12th National Handloom Day celebration held at DK Convention Centre, Itanagar on 7 August 2026, over 32,000 handloom weavers are engaged in the sector in Arunachal Pradesh, the majority of them women. That is the population CMITPS draws its beneficiaries from.

Who is eligible for CMITPS, and who is not?

You can be selected if:

• You are an indigenous resident of Arunachal Pradesh and can produce a Permanent Residence Certificate or Scheduled Tribe certificate from the Deputy Commissioner or Circle Officer.
• You are a practising handloom weaver, the district pages consistently describe beneficiaries as "poor but expert" weavers of tribal motif handloom.
• You come from an economically weaker household. Papum Pare district described its CMITPS batch as 500 BPL weavers, so a BPL card or income certificate matters at selection.
• You are registered with the department, ideally holding a Handloom Weaver Card, since district beneficiary lists are drawn from these registers.

You are not eligible if:

• You are not a resident of Arunachal Pradesh. CMITPS is a state scheme funded from the state budget for indigenous weavers of the state.
• You are not a weaver. Traders, yarn dealers and cloth retailers cannot apply for the yarn benefit.
• You run a powerloom or a commercial textile unit. CMITPS is a handloom programme aimed at household weavers, not mechanised production.
• You already received the same benefit in the current distribution cycle. District offices rotate the benefit so that more weavers are covered over time rather than the same names repeating.
• You cannot prove indigenous or local weaver status to the satisfaction of the district office.

The department has not published a statewide income ceiling or age limit for CMITPS. Where a figure like that is quoted to you locally, ask to see it in writing from the district office before relying on it.

What benefit does CMITPS give?

CMITPS gives free fine-quality yarn. The type has varied with the year's procurement: Changlang district records acrylic yarn distribution in 2014-15 and cotton yarn distribution in 2016-17, while Anjaw records 400 local weavers provided fine cotton yarn free of cost. The yarn is handed over at distribution camps or at the district office and is not convertible into cash.

In selected years the scheme has gone further and given capital equipment. In 2015-16, 116 weavers received improved frame looms with warping drum, accessories and yarn, all free of cost, a package recorded both in West Kameng and in the Changlang district scheme table.

Recorded beneficiary counts give a realistic sense of scale:

Note the honest caveat published by Lohit district: in 2017-18 no yarn distribution took place there because supplies were not received from the government. CMITPS is an annual, budget-dependent distribution, not a guaranteed entitlement, and a district can skip a year.

Beyond the yarn itself, the department facilitates local weavers and artisans to take part in exhibitions, fairs and melas at district, state and national level, which is where many CMITPS beneficiaries find buyers.

What documents are required for CMITPS?

How to apply for CMITPS

CMITPS has no online application form. The route is offline, through the district office, and it works like this:

1. Get yourself registered as a weaver. Visit the office of the Assistant Director or Deputy Director, Textile and Handicrafts in your district, or the Craft Superintendent at the nearest government craft or weaving centre, and apply for a Handloom Weaver Card. Carry Aadhaar, your PRC or ST certificate and two photographs.
2. Ask the district office for the current CMITPS beneficiary list cycle. Selection happens once a financial year and is tied to that year's yarn procurement, so timing matters. Circle Officers and the district administration also route enquiries to the department.
3. Submit your application with documents. Give the district office your written application along with the weaver card or its acknowledgement, Aadhaar, residence proof and BPL card or income certificate if you have one.
4. Attend verification. The Craft Superintendent or a departmental official verifies that you are an active handloom weaver working on tribal motifs. Keep your loom and recent woven pieces available to be seen.
5. Collect the yarn at the distribution camp. Once the district list is approved, the office announces a distribution date. Carry photo identity and, once it has been issued to you, your Yarn Pass Book, in which the yarn drawn is recorded.
6. Keep the acknowledgement. The receipt confirms you were a beneficiary in that cycle, which matters when rotation decides the next year's list.

How do you check your CMITPS application status?

Status checking is also offline. Ask the district Assistant Director's office whether your name appears in the approved beneficiary list for the current financial year. Because the lists are district-level and small: from roughly 116 to 500 names, the office can usually answer on the spot. The Craft Superintendent of your circle is the second point of contact.

From 2026 the department has begun building an Artisan Data Bank, launched by the Chief Minister on National Handloom Day, along with the distribution of SAMARTH certificates and Yarn Pass Books. As that database matures, weaver records that today sit in district registers are expected to be traceable centrally. Until the department announces a public lookup, the district office remains the only reliable place to check.

Why do CMITPS applications get rejected?

• No weaver registration. An applicant who has never obtained a Handloom Weaver Card is usually not in the register the list is drawn from. Fix: apply for the card first, then for the scheme.
• Residence proof missing or in a different name. A PRC or ST certificate whose spelling does not match Aadhaar causes rejection. Fix: correct one document so both read identically.
• Not an active weaver. Verification checks that a loom is actually in use.
• Already covered in the current cycle. Rotation, not refusal, reapply in the next cycle.
• No distribution in your district that year. As Lohit's 2017-18 record shows, procurement failures stop distribution altogether. Nothing in the application is wrong in this case; the cycle simply did not run.

What are the key dates for CMITPS?

CMITPS runs on the financial year, April to March, and no fixed statewide last date for applications has been announced. In practice, district offices firm up beneficiary lists ahead of procurement, and distribution camps have been held in different months in different districts, Papum Pare's cotton yarn programme for 500 BPL weavers, for instance, commenced in November 2018.

Two dates are worth watching each year. 7 August, National Handloom Day, is when the state makes most of its handloom announcements: the Handloom and Handicrafts Policy 2025 was launched by Textile and Handicrafts Minister Nyato Dukam at Tezu in Lohit district on 7 August 2025, and the Artisan Data Bank was launched at Itanagar on 7 August 2026. The state budget presentation, usually in the first quarter of the calendar year, decides how much yarn a district will receive.

How is CMITPS changing under the Handloom and Handicrafts Policy 2025?

The Arunachal Pradesh Handloom and Handicrafts Policy 2025 sets the direction CMITPS now works within. Its stated components include a database of weavers and artisans, raw material and tool banks, better access to credit, promotion of research and development, e-commerce and digital expansion, a "one tribe, one weave" initiative, livelihood support and legal safeguards for indigenous designs. New Craft Building Centres were announced for Tezu and Sunpura.

Two of those components change how a weaver experiences CMITPS. The raw material bank formalises what CMITPS did as an annual camp into a standing supply, and the artisan database replaces paper district registers, which should reduce the chance of an eligible weaver being missed. Several traditional textiles of the state have secured or are pursuing Geographical Indication (GI) registration, which raises the market value of exactly the motif-based cloth CMITPS yarn is meant to produce.

Where do you get help or complain about CMITPS?

• Directorate of Textiles and Handicrafts, Itanagar to 0360-2211815, the state-level office for the scheme.
• District Assistant Director / Deputy Director, Textile and Handicrafts, the first stop for selection, verification and distribution complaints. For example, Changlang lists 03808-222920 and 9436054054 for its Assistant Director's office, and Namsai lists 8258078997.
• Craft Superintendent at your nearest government craft or weaving centre, for day-to-day queries and help filling forms.
• Circle Officer or the Deputy Commissioner's office, which routes scheme enquiries to the department where no departmental office is nearby.

CMITPS yarn is given free. No fee is payable to be added to a beneficiary list, and no official or middleman is authorised to charge for a weaver card or for yarn distributed under the scheme.