CSB clarifies misconceptions of K'taka on sericulture amendments

Bangalore, Dec 21 (UNI) Central Silk Board Chairman H Hanumanthappa today categorically stated that the Board would not take control of sericulture activities in Karnataka in the wake of recent amendments to the Sericulture Act that aimed at hastening the development of silk production in the country.

Talking to UNI here, he said he had held discussions with State Science and Technology Minister C Ramachandra Gowda and Sericulture department officials and discussed threadbare the three major points in the amendments that aimed at giving a fillip to silk production.

The amendments would pave way for Board supervision of silkworm seed production in the state through certified producers, permit reeliers of automatic reeling machines to have direct contract with cocoon producers to meet their huge requirement and permit investments by the corporate sector for taking up sericulture in large scale covering over 1,000 acres.

Mr Hanumanthappa said the talks were held in a cordial atmosphere and the CSB clarified that the Centre would not take over control of sericulture from States.

He said currently certified seeds were produced by the CSB, the State authorities, besides private granages. The quality offered by the private granages was not uniform and this would impact the automatic reeliers who import machineries from China that could take up 1,500 kg of cocoon per day.

Hence, CSB would have the power to inspect the cocoon produced and ensure superior quality was produced. Hitherto, such practice was not permitted by the law of the state under which cocoon need to be procured only from stipulated markets to which rearers would bring in their produce, he pointed out.

Mr Hanumanthappa said the Board erased the misconception of the State authorities that the new law would bring in middlemenship.

However, it was decided that certain words and points that were acting as irritants would be removed from the amendments when framing the rules.

He said certain drastic and immediate steps were needed to put silk production on a galloping mode as forecasts had revealed that even at the end of the 12th plan, the demand and supply gap for silk production would be around 10,000 tonnes.

''There is no point in blaming Chinese imports when we have such a huge gap and steps need to be taken to make India attain self-sufficiency in silk production,'' he added.

Currently, India produced around 17,500 tonnes of silk with the demand being more than 26,000 tonnes, he further added.

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