The Hindu Business Line : Coir Shippers Council seeks bigger Plan share

The Coir Shippers Council has suggested that substantial assistances may be set apart in the Eleventh Plan for existing traditional factories in the State to convert themselves into mechanised units.

But till such transformation is achieved, the traditional sector of the coir industry should be given all necessary assistance to survive, Mr K.C. Eapen, Member Secretary of the Council said at the workshop on 11th Five Year Plan programmes in coir sector here.

The Kerala coir industry, he said is still continues in the traditional pattern. The industry is passing through a period of revolution and what had been a handloom industry is now becoming a highly sophisticated mechanised one, he added.

Even though schemes for the development of the coir industry had been evolved from the first Five-Year Plan onwards, these did not benefit the workers in total. Considering this, he pointed out that future programmes for the development of the coir industry should involve all sectors in the industry most specifically the private sector.

All schemes for the betterment of the spinning sector of the coir industry and the workforce involved should direct through village units like Kudumbasree and Self Help Groups, he said.

The present scenario is that the emerging coir industries are mostly situated outside the State where production costs are much lower than in Kerala and more and more industrial establishments starting factories in neighbouring states.

Moreover, the industrial units in the State are saddled with laws giving fringe benefits to the workmen like medical assistance, PF, gratuity, holiday wages etc whereas the coir establishments in the neighbouring states are not obliged to give such benefits.

The Council suggested that the Coir Industry Act should be amended to make it really in tune with the changing times and efforts should be made to strengthen the Coir Board. It also demanded that owners of coir industrial units in the State, who are by law compelled to bare a higher cost of production, might be compensated to the extent of amounts that they have to pay towards fringe benefits to the workmen.

Laws and regulations in respect of the coir industry should be made the same in all the States and union territories of the country, it said.

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