The Hindu Business Line : Silk board teams up with CII to boost sericulture

The Central Silk Board (CSB) is joining hands with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to get corporates involved in sericulture in a big way. It plans to organise a series of interactive meeting starting in December in major cities.

The involvement of corporates, spreading sericulture in more States and providing incentives to farmers are some of the ingredients of a strategy that the CSB, under the Union Ministry of Textiles is working on to bridge the demand-supply gap for silk in the country, its Chairman, Mr H. Hanumanthappa, said here on Wednesday.

Jayant Oil Mills, Gujarat, plans to enter sericulture in a big way. It wants to procure 3,200 tonnes from Maharashtra farmers per year, especially the Eri silk and convert it into export products, he said, citing an example of the corporate interest.

The CSB estimates that the domestic demand was of the order of 26,000 tonnes, while the production was 17,000 tonnes at present.

By the end of Eleventh Plan, efforts would be to reduce the gap at the levels then and by Twelfth Plan break even, Mr Hanumanthappa told newspersons, after inaugurating a buyer-seller meet of Vanya Silk here.

Acreage growth

In addition to the traditionally strong States such as Karnataka, there is big growth in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, Jharkand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal are also showing strong growth. The North-East, Jammu & Kashmir and other States are also increasing their acreage under mulberry cultivation, he said.

The CSB has also helped procure the latest automatic reeling machine from China to one entrepreneur each in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. There is demand for more already and the board will facilitate it. Each machine costs about Rs 2.5 crore, of which the board would provide Rs 50 lakh.

Vanya Silk is of special interest to the board due to its high social and economic relevance. Grown in the North-East and Himalayan region, there are three varieties — tasar, muga and Eri — and it provides livelihood to about 18 lakh tribals. A large number of sellers of the silk products have put up stalls in the five-day exhibition here.

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