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G. Srinivasan

Mysore , Sept. 5

WITH the high fashion-centric European customers demanding finer silk and the competition looming large from China once the global textile quota regime is terminated by 2004, the Indian silk industry is gearing itself by shifting its focus from traditional mulberry silk production to high-quality, high-yielding bivoltine sericulture on a bigger scale.

In this changing scenario, the past constraints such as non-availability of appropriate bivoltine sericulture technology, silkworm breeds suitable for the tropical conditions of India, inadequate services and support mechanism had been overcome, thanks to the combined efforts of the Central Silk Board (CSB), the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) and the Sericulture Department of the State governments of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu which have taken up the project on a larger scale.

Officials of the Karnataka Sericulture Department told a group of presspersons that India currently produced about 16,000 tonnes of raw silk, against the demand of 24,000 tonnes, leaving the balance to be met by imports largely from China. While Indian silk production is by far composed of multivoltine variety, the imported silk from China is bivoltine.

In order to overcome the obstacles to bivoltine sericulture in India, the Japanese Government through its official outfit, JICA, came forward to help India to develop the bivoltine sericulture technology way ago in 1991.

In the first phase (1991-97) — Project for Bivoltine Sericulture Technology Development — the bivoltine silkworm hybrids from Japan were brought to the Central Silk Research and Training Institute (CSR&TI), Mysore, and crossed with evolved Indian bivoltine breeds to engender high-yielding hybrid with superior yarn quality.

In the second phase (1997-2002) — Project for Promotion and Popularisation of Bivoltine Sericulture Technology — the developed silkworm strains were tested for large-scale farming in the farmers' fields of Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu.

According to the Directors, Central Silk Technological Research Institute, Dr T.H. Somashekar and Dr Benjamin, the CSB with the support of JICA developed technologies suitable for tropical bivoltine and popularised it among the farmers in the second phase so much so that JICA-assisted farmers' cocoon command "premium" price in the important auction centres such as Ramnagaram in Mandya district of Karnataka.

This is so because bivoltine hybrid silkworms could yield around two times the quantity of high-grade silk compared to traditional mulberry. Since this entails higher amount of nutrients from quality mulberry leaves, the technology package of JICA and CSB and other allied technical institutes had helped in raising the awareness of the bivoltine sericulture in a bigger way among the farmers who now increasingly opt for this technology to realise a better return.

Officials said the yellowish silk produced from multivoltine races had lower strength with filament length of below 750 metres per cocoon and such silks also did not conform to any of the globally approved grades — B, A, 2A, 3A and 4A ranked in the ascending order of quality defined by fibre texture, fineness, neatness and filament length.

On the other hand, the bivoltine silk mostly being imported and now reared domestically on a larger scale is of higher tensile strength with filament length of 1,150-1,200 metres.

Explaining the third phase of JICA's Project for Strengthening Extension System for bivoltine sericulture, the Chief Advisor of the project, Dr H.Yangawa, said the mandate was to establish a system of mass production of quality seeds, beef up the training system for the staff of agencies and growers involved and establish a replicable extension model for spreading the bivoltine sericulture in the country.

Ultimately at the end of the project period-2007 which coincides with the end of the Tenth Plan, the objective would be to augment bivoltine raw silk production from 833 tonnes achieved in 2001-02 to 6,700 tonnes by the end of 2007 so that the dependence on imported finer quality raw silk would drastically come down and India would also take the competition head-on in the global market by mass producing this superior quality silk of international grade, officials said.

The Joint Director (Bivoltine Cell) of CSB, Mr Jayant Jayaswal, said a Catalytic Development Programme in association with the Department of Sericulture was under way in which 13 schemes were identified to improve the quantity and quality of silk production to benefit the growers and reelers through proper technology package including extension of credit and subsidies.

The CSR&TI Director, Dr Dandin, said the underlying objective in spreading bivoltine sericulture was to generate and meet the domestic demand for bivoltine silk to the extent that import dependence is cut down and add value to yarn by exporting finished silk fabrics and designer dresses abroad.

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