Cooch Behar, Nov. 17: The indigenous sital pati (cool mat) weavers in the district have been hit by the demonitisation drive as hardly any customer is turning up at the bi-weekly markets to buy the items.

The market or haat is held at Ghughumari every Monday and Thursday and buyers from other states and even Bhutan buy the cane mats that are mostly for interior decoration and in the footwear market.

Gobinda Chandra Dey, the president of Cooch Behar I Pati Shilpa Samabay Samity, said more than 20,000 weavers were involved in the cottage industry. "The mat industry is indigenous to the Ghughumari area of Cooch Behar district and is not found anywhere else in north Bengal. We get buyers from outside the state as well as Nepal, Bhutan and Assam."

Dey added: "Since the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, our sales have dropped drastically. The sales have been almost half in the past few days as most buyers do not have cash. On a normal day, the sales are between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 50 lakh at the market."

Each mat measuring 5ft by 7ft costs around Rs 7,000.

Naba Kumar Dey, a weaver with a two-bigha plot on which he grows the cane, said: "Buyers are offering us Rs 10-20 for each Rs 500 note we accept. But when we are asking for Rs 100 notes or notes in lower denominations, they are paying less for the mats. My family is totally dependent on this industry and the sales have suddenly dropped due to the cash crunch. I just hope that this ends soon."

Gobinda Sarkar, secretary of the weavers' cooperative, said almost all weavers had their own land where the raw material was grown.

"In other industries, people have to buy the raw material. But we have our own plots where we grow a fine variety of cane. Men, women and children are adept at stripping the cane and weaving sital pati. A finely woven 5ft by 7ft mat takes about a month to weave and we sell them at Rs 7,000 to Rs 7,500 each," he said.

Shaukat Ali, the principal of Sonapur College in Alipurduar and a commerce professor, said the cottage industry was suffering. "These families depend on just one vocation - weaving the mats - and the condition of the market is bound to have a long-term impact on their livelihood," he said.