Central Silk Board set to showcase products to global market

Usha Prasad in Bangalore

The Central Silk Board (CSB) is set to showcase the splendour of Indian silk to the world market by helping to develop global standards in production and cultivation. A perceptive plan chalked out by an expert group set up by the Union Government on sericulture for the 10th Plan Period aims to make India a global leader in silk industry with an estimated plan outlay of Rs 3,105 crore. CSB will be the nodal agency for charting a new silk route for the Indian silk industry in its global pursuits.

The focus of the programme would be to improve production of all varieties of raw silk especially that of bivoltine to bring down dependence on imports in the coming years. The increase in the production of bivoltine silk will also help India to garner a higher share of the global market for raw silk and silk products. The expert group has suggested to bring down dependence on imported bivoltine to 18 per cent by 2007 compared to current 48 per cent. Production of bivoltine silk is expected to go upto 6,700 tonnes in 2007 from 575 tonnes in 2000-01.

Speaking to The Financial Express CSB member secretary Joy Oommen said the “this is the right time for India to emerge as the global leader in the silk sector as tradtional players in the field are either slowing down production or changing their focus from the silk sector”.

Explaining the advantages enjoyed by India, Mr Oomen said the country has become the second largest producer of silk in 1987. “We have maintained that position since then with the production touching nearly 16,000 tonnes last year”. But developments at the global level during the last few years could be used to leverage Indian industry to the leading position at the global level, Mr Oomen said.

China the leading producer of silk in the world has re-prioritised its land use pattern and the production has come down to 56,000 tonnes in 2000 from 79,000 in 1995. Japan another leading producer of silk has virtually ceased to be a key player with production coming down to just 650 tonnes last year. Other silk producing countries like Korea, CIS countries, Brazil etc are not in a position to produce silk at a competitive price at the international level. The new entrants like Vietnam and Thailand are going through a lot of teething problems, he pointed out.

As per the current status silk constitutes about three per cent of the world textile trade and India’s share in world silk trade is about eight per cent. India has the distinction of being the only country producing all five known commercial varieties of silk - mulberry, Tasar, Oak, Eri, Mooga.

According to Mr Oomen a major factor preventing India breaking into global silk market is the lack of bivoltine hybrid variety of silk regarded as superior compared to the multivoltine based on cross-breed variety. Since India was having a very strong domestic demand the industry was catering to that sector capable of absorbing silk whatever may be the quality.

So the focus would be to improve the bivoltaine variety and an estimated amount of Rs 150 crore would be spend on this alone during the 10 plan period, he added.

The expert panel has identified four major reasons for the failure of bivoltine hybrid sericulture in India in the past. Firstly bivoltine silkworm that would perform well in tropical climate was not available. Attempts at acclimatizing certain bivoltine races for tropical belts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu with only partial success and these races finally ended up for crossbreeding purposes only. The lack of a technology package giving confidence to the farmers coupled with the failure to equip farmers with infrastructure also added to the problem.

But the expert group felt that the country is now more technologically equipped to attempt a “quantum jump in bivoltine silk production” as an integrated technology package developed by CSB was succesfully implemented by farmers in Karantaka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Despite India being the second largest producer of silk, next only to China, about 5,000 mt of bivoltine silk is still being imported to meet the demand of the power loom sector in the country.

India envisages to produce around 25,000 mtpa of silk by 2007 as against 16,000 mtpa in 2000. Mr Oomen said funds would be set aside to support rearing houses, drip irrigation and new equipments for bivoltine silk production during the plan period. “We are also looking for external funding from world bank and other multi-lateral agencies to support other states in the country to popularise bivoltine silk. A concept plan is prepared to get funds from bi-lateral and multi-lateral funding agencies,” Mr Oomen said.

Currently India produces upto 16,000 tonnes of raw silk against the domestic requirement of 22,000 tonnes.

World raw silk production (mulberry and non-mulberry) in the year 2000 was about 80,000 tonnes. India, ranking second among silk producing countries accounts for about 15,900 tonnes (2000-01) or about 20 per cent of total world raw production. Export of Indian silk products during 2000-01 was valued at US$ 530.06 million.

According to Mr Oomen, training of farmers in a decentralised fashion and strengthening of local training schools with nurseries and mass production of seeds is very important at this stage. Participation of private sector plays an important role in increasing seed production, he said.

During the ninth plan (1997-2000), Government of India had approved an allocation of Rs 1,137.56 crores for development of sericulture under the State and Central sectors. The export target set for the end of 9th Plan was Rs 1,526 crore, whereas the achievement far exceeded the target in 2000-01 itself by touching Rs 2,420 crore.