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| Mir for intensifiying cocoon rearing in J&K | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, April 26 : To give fillip to the sericulture industry in the state, the Minister for Agriculture,G.H.Mir.Mir has directed the senior functionaries and the experts in the Department to lay emphasis on the production of three cocoon crops a year.
Mir said that his mission was to enable Jammu and Kashmir to regain its stature of producing the finest quality silk. He said that four clusters with 100 sheds each are being established for enhancing cocoon production. He said that he has decided to set production target for each year and added that he has asked the senior functionaries of the Department to initiate measures so that the state was able to produce 10 lakh kgs of cocoon by the end of the current financial year.
He said that even after the partial revival of silk industry,which had been hit hard by militancy related violence,the state has been able to produce eight lakh kgs of cocoons a year valuing Rs.eight crores. He said since the state had a weak silk industry base 25 to 30 per cent cocoon was utilised by the local industry and the remaining quantity was sold outside the state. When asked what was the purpose of increasing the cocoon production when it was not being used fully by the local industrial units, Mir said that even if 70 per cent produce was sold outside the state it fetched rumnuerative price for the cultivators. He said once he was able to increase the cocoon production by three times within next three years ,he would explore the possibility of setting up new industrial units for reeling, weaving, printing of silk fabric and for preparing garments.
He said that over the years the silk industry,especially the cocoon rearing has been ignored when the industry sustains over 22,000 rural families in over 2100 villages. Mir said that a corpus fund is in operation for market intervention,running silk exchanges and cocoon bank.In addition to this a multi-task force comprising experts from all relevant fields has been constituted to look into various aspects of mulberriculture, sericulture,weaving and silk industry.
The Minister said within next five years the production of cocoon will touch over 15 lakh kgs. If that happened cocoon rearers will be the main gainers.and this could change the economic scenario in the rural areas of the state.
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