Textiles Minister Honours 54 Women Achievers in Sericulture

Put All Efforts to Make India Leading Silk Producer: Gangwar
New Delhi, September 17, 2014: The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Textiles Santosh Kumar Gangwar today honoured 54 women from 27 Indian states who have achieved significant success in production, productivity and adoption of best practices in the field of Sericulture across the country in a National Workshop on "Empowering Women Through Sericulture". During the inaugural session, five achievers shared their experience.

Inaugurating the Workshop, Gangwar heartily noted that sericulture has been providing gainful livelihood opportunities to rural women. Addressing the women achievers, the Minister added that “through sericulture, you have been able to provide good education to your children and spend the money earned out of it fruitfully for the betterment of your families. This is indeed encouraging. You are role models for other farmers. I would appeal to you to promote sericulture for enhanced silk production in the country.”

Gangwar said that we have to make all the efforts to make India the leading producer of silk and that “it is the right time for us to focus on high quality silk and become truly world class.” He said that the Ministry would like to take the development process through participative approaches leading to inclusive growth. He also expressed happiness about the innovative practices adopted by the women in sericulture and hoped that this workshop will help in augmenting production of quality silk in the country substantially.

Making a presentation on the matter, Dr. Sanjay Kumar Panda, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, stressed that that sericulture is an effective tool for poverty eradication in rural areas and empowerment of women. He further stated that the challenges ahead lies in producing quality bivoltine silk for meeting the need of the silk weaving industry. He further highlighted that quality silk worm food plants, robust silk worm races, production of quality silk worm seed and effective marketing should be the focus areas.

Dr. Panda stated that the key to success is good team work with synergy with the schemes of other departments like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and National Aforestation Programme (NAP), appropriate technology and effective management.

India continues to be the second largest producer of silk in the world. The silk production has shown a remarkable progress during the year 2013-14. There was an all time increase of 11.8% growth in silk production during 2013-14 when compared to the production during 2012-13. The raw silk production in India during 2013-14 was 26480 MTs which includes 1.9476 MTs of mulberry silk, 2619 MTs of tasar silk, 4237 MTs of eri silk and 148 MTs of muga silk.

During the current financial year (2014-15) it is targeted to produce 28500 MTs silk which includes 3500 MTs of quality bivoltine silk. This also covers production of 2785 MTs of tasar silk, 4760 MTs of eri silk and 150 MTs of muga silk. The focus, at the same time, is also on production of quality bivoltine silk to cater to the requirements of weaving sector. The demand for superior quality bivoltine silk is increasing in India for domestic consumption as well as value added silk products for the export market. The Ministry of Textiles Government of India and Departments of Sericulture in various states provide technical and financial assistance for enhancing the bivoltine silk production.

 -----------------------------
Readers may send their news/views/feedback to us:
[email protected]