Silk - the queen of all fabrics is historically one of India's most leading industries. India produces a collection of silks called Mulberry, Tasar, Muga and Eri, based on the feeding habit of the cocoons.

Indian Silk industry

The sericulture commerce today employs over 700,000 farm families and is mostly concentrated in Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh and to some extent Assam and West Bengal. Karnataka accounts for more than 70 percent of the country's total silk production.

Sericulture is one commerce which is beneficial to the agriculturists. As in today 56 lakhs habitancy are dependent on the sericulture industry, 5.6 million habitancy out of which 4.7 million are agriculturists. The rest are reelers, weavers etc.

Free+region+player

India is the second largest producer of silk, contributing to about 18 per cent to the world production. What is however, more powerful is the fact that India's requirement of raw silk is much higher than its current yield at present. Thus, there is valuable scope for stepping up yield of raw silk in the country, overcome the persistent disagreement of interest between exporters of silk products and producers of raw silk.

While sericulturists want imports of raw silk to be restricted to have better market for their produce, exporters want imports of economy raw silk so as to be able to export more silk products at competitive rates. India has all the four varieties of silk namely, mulberry, tassar, eri and muga. It is however, disheartening to note that we have not yet been able to fully exploit this advantage and make our presence felt on the international scene more prominently than at present. For this, one has to clearly understand the strengths and weaknesses of separate segments of this sector.

The compel of this commerce lies in its wide base, the sustaining market examine pull especially from the Indian handloom weaving sector, the infrastructure created by the national sericulture task and the explore and training capabilities.

Mulberry segment

Its main weakness is linked to a poor database, diverse range of practices leading to a difference in productivity and quality. Generally, there is weak accent on quality consistency in production, poor exchange of technology to the decentralised sector both due to poor technology absorption and poor/inadequate consequent up on laboratory findings; poor market linkages barring in Karnataka, a prosperous unfair trade in the post-yarn sector, low-end technology use and reluctance to costlier technologies due to fears that there might not be corresponding improvement in price realisations. Other weaknesses are inadequate emphasis on quality in the market seed sector, neglect of marketing linkages and the need for a basic perspective for amelioration of the sector which clearly defined relative roles for the central and state agencies under the federal set-up.

Among non-mulberry silks, tassar is mostly produced by tribals by rearing silkworms on forest plants. India is the largest producer of tassar silk after China and is the only producer of golden muga silk. Also, India is a major producer of eri silk.

Unlike mulberry silk production, non-mulberry silk yield is unsteady and fluctuates from year to year. The central silk board has not given adequate concentration to their R&D and extension activities in the area of non-mulberry sericulture in spite of its inherent to directly help the poor. Presently, muga and eri silks are produced mostly for self-consumption. But with their uniqueness to India, they have great inherent for value-added exports.

The government must give to these varieties of silk the significance that is due to them and facilitate focussed R&D, targeted extension and innovative stock amelioration for value-added exports.

Tassar

It has been noted that the following are the areas of weaknesses in yield of tassar and they want to be set right

. Rearing is done outdoor on trees; natural food plants are dispersed over large areas. Thus, allinclusive extension reserve would entail a large estimate of extension agents to cater to the farmers beyond their resources.

. Also weavers are normally reelers and are not exploited by traders.

. Oak tassar culture has not yet been properly adopted, as habitancy are new to this culture and economics are yet to be established.

. Also lack of disease monitoring and of operate measures is noticed.

Eri

Eri silk which is largely produced in some eastern parts of the country has exact thermal proprieties. It can also be blended with wool, other silks, cotton ramie, jute or artificial fibres. Areas of weakness in eri silk include:-

. Lack of systematic furnish of adequate quantity of foilage.

. Lack of scientific formula to check diseases

. Poor supervision while rearing

. Non-availability of separate rearing house and

. Absence of any well-organised marketing system

Muga

This golden yellow silk is quite unique to Assam and neighbouring areas of Nagaland and Meghalaya. It has spread to West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh as well. While basic seed yield is more or less organised, market seed yield is to be organised systematically. More explore reserve is needed for this activity.

Cut throat competition from China

Sericulture in India has taken a severe beating with cheap silk arrival from China and flooding the Indian markets.

India imported nearby 9,258 tonnes of silk worth over six billion rupees last year from China, the world's largest silk producer.

Nearly 49,000 hectares of mulberry crop was uprooted in Karnataka as cocoon prices crashed resulting in a loss of 3,000 tonnes to the country's allinclusive silk production, according to statistics released by the Central Silk Board.

Dumping of silk yarn from China has affected the yield of silk because the rate of cocoons in the market has come down because the examine has been reduced due to import of China silk. So farmers who were expecting a better wage for their cocoons stopped because market was fluctuating. When the imported silk came in, dealers lost their interest in buying the cocoons and farmers did not get the better rates. This has resulted in 49,000 hectares of mulberries being uprooted in Karnataka. In turn the farmers have taken up other activities, other agricultural productions rather than continuing with mulberry.

According to the farmers, their crops also suffered from the third consecutive drought last year. Farmers are demanding that the government should impose anti-dumping duties on Chinese silk.

India stands second only to China in silk production. While China produced 69,000 metric tons of raw silk last year, India stood far behind with 16,000 metric tons.

Officials say India requires 120,000 metric tons of silk to meet the examine in world market and with better infrastructure facility; the sericulture commerce could enhance its productivity to 15 percent as against the current nine percent.

Conclusion

The bulk of Indian silk thread and silk cloth is consumed domestically. The gift market context for silk in the country is one of vigorously growing internal examine for silk fabrics, with growth rates of above 10 percent per year.

With great government and international subsidies for silk projects and marketing schemes, the commerce has been addition rapidly over the last few years. Silk exports too are growing rapidly. Germany is the largest consumer of Indian silk.

Today only China and India are the producers in silk. Thailand, Uzbekistan also produces silk but the quantity is very small. So we will have to keep this raw silk and fabrics for them to continue in the market. Only two countries can do it. India is the largest consumer of silk fabrics by way of sarees and so many other things. So we will have to enhance our silk culture.

Today the Indian silk commerce is already a major player in the global scenario and the growth prospects for the commerce seem to be bullish. Measures like the encouragement of additional technological and economic explore in the assorted aspects of sericulture, standardization and quality operate of silk and silk products and rationalization of marketing and stabilization of prices of silk cocoons and raw silk it could advance rapidly than ever before.

Indian Silk industry

Thanks To : Dj Controller