Trends of consumption of silk

Karnataka accounts for 25% of the country’s silk export. This is valued at Rs.400 crore currently but would hopefully go upto Rs.1, 500 crore by 2010. The state of Andhra Pradesh has planned to double the area under mulberry cultivation from the existing 1.10 lakh acres to 2.48 lakh acres by 2020, in line with the Vision – 2020 plan. The Indian govt. has launched an ambitious programme called – operation silk wave to help in the development of superior bivotine silk in the country. It is expected that by 2007 production of bivoltine silk would touch 10,500 tonnes from the 300 tonnes being produced currently. Simply put this means reducing the demand supply gap in case of raw silk from the existing 48 per cent to less than 20 per cent in 2007. The focus of Operation silk wave is to help raise the production of bivoltine silk in the traditional strongholds of mulberry silk, namely - Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Issues and plans to raise production of bivoltine silk were discussed at a seminar "Strategies for a quantum jump in silk production" at Bangalore.

All India raw silk productivity has doubled in about five years time. In 1995-96, it was pegged at a lot 32% hectare but recorded a near 50% jump to touch 46kg in the very next year. It has since then recorded steady upward movement and was placed at 61kg per hectare in 1999-00.

The Karnataka State was planning to raise the area under mulberry cultivation (notably of the new improved varieties like V-1 and S-36) to 50% of the total area under bulberry cultivation. Incidentally the area under mulberry cultivation rose during 1990-91 to touch 1.49 lakh hectares against 1.14 lakh hectares in 1980-81.

Coinciding with the rise in area under mulberry Karnataka also witnessed a near 50% rise in cocoon production, which touched 59,033 tonnes during 1990-91 as against 38,066 tonnes in 1980-81. Production can be increased with irrigation facilities. From the existing 300 hectares under drip irrigation the state plans to rise this level to 2,500 hectares by 2010. The state also plans to set up 5,000 independent rearing houses against 100 at present. Production of bivoltine silk is projected to go up from 212 tonnes presently to around 10,000 tonnes in ten years time. The state, which has also enacted the Reshme Sampathu Yojane is planning to invest a sum of Rs. 400 crore over the next five to six years and plans to seek financial assistance from various agencies including the World Bank and the Govt. of India. The more ambitious plan in Andhra Pradesh’s scheme of plans happens to be in increasing production of bivoltine silk production from the existing 30 tonnes to about 94,000 tonnes by 2020. Multivoltine silk production is also expected to rise to 1.44 lakh tonnes from the existing 30,000 tonnes.

In the other major producing state, Tamil Nadu, the area under mulberry cultivation was 12,900 hectares during the 8^th five-year Plan, which is expected to touch 12,550 hectares by 2002. By 2007 the area would witness a rise by about 66% touching 20,550 hectares. Production of raw silk, which declined from 774 tonnes during the 8^th plan Period to 672 tonnes. It is estimated that raw silk production would go upto 1,800 tonnes by 2007 up from 800 tonnes in 2002. Production of bivoltine silk is likely to witness a five-fold increase from 55 tonnes (in 2002) to 300 tonnes in 2007.

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Technologies
(Sericulture)