Basking in silken glory
Ranchi, Feb. 10: With production of tussar touching the 300MT mark this fiscal, sericulture has picked up remarkably in Jharkhand.
Over the past few years, the industries department had been working towards improving the sericulture scenario in the state. It laid special emphasis on the production of tussar, mulberry and lariya, a local variety of silk, and involved villagers. The effort has paid rich dividend.
The state, which produced 143MT tussar in the last fiscal, has doubled production. The sericulture boom will further double the production by the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan period. This has also triggered an upward revision of the national target set by the Union government, said B.C. Prasad, the joint director of state sericulture.
Initially, it was planned that 425MT of tussar would be produced in the country by the end of the current plan period. But the pace of growth as indicated by the performance of Jharkhand has prompted revision of the earlier target to 1,000MT, he said.
Earlier, in Jharkhand, sericulture was limited to production of cocoons. The state industries department considered value addition at a later stage. Rearing of seeds and reeling of yarn are now being done by trained self-help groups. Even weaving, dyeing and processing have been taken up while training in apparel designing is being planned.
Marketing of the finished goods will be done through Jharcraft, which has its branches in Ranchi and Delhi.
Tussar farmers need commercial seeds. These are prepared from nucleaus seeds. Earlier, seeds would be obtained from the Central Silk Board, but there was a gap between demand and supply. In order to tackle the situation, the industries department took up seed-rearing and entrusted villagers with the task of commercial seed-rearing. Every group has 23 villagers who work under a reshamdoot (silk ambassador).
The department has started 28 pilot project centres for development of sericulture in the state and 25 of them are exclusively for development of tussar production.
“About 28,000 people are involved in sericulture in the state and we plan to increase the number to one lakh by next year,” Prasad said.
Seed rearing has also shown encouraging results in the state. Normally the rearing of commercial seeds are produced in the ratio of 1 : 6 meaning from 1 basic seed 6 commercial seeds can be produced. But in Kharsawan district it has gone up to an average of 1 : 10 and indications are there that it can be taken up further, claimed M N Jha, assistant director, sericulture of Kolhan region who had come here with some seed farmers who shared their experience with their counterparts from Ranchi-Palamau region yesterday.
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