Indian Silk

Silk - the queen of all fabrics is historically one of India's most important industries. India produces a variety of silks called Mulberry, Tasar, Muga and Eri, based on the feeding habit of the cocoons.

The sericulture industry today employs over 700,000 farm families and is mostly concentrated in Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh and to some extent Assam and West Bengal. Karnataka accounts for more than 70 percent of the country's total silk production, the outcome are beautiful Indian silk sarees.

Sericulture is one industry which is beneficial to the agriculturists. As in today 56 lakhs people are dependent on the sericulture industry, 5.6 million people out of which 4.7 million are agriculturists. The rest are reelers, weavers etc.

India is the second largest producer of silk, contributing to about 18 per cent to the world production. What is however, more noteworthy is the fact that India's requirement of raw silk is much higher than its current production at present. 

Thus, there is considerable scope for stepping up production of raw silk in the country, overcome the persistent conflict of interest between exporters of silk products and producers of raw silk.

While sericulturists want imports of raw silk to be restricted to have better market for their produce, exporters want imports of cheaper raw silk so as to be able to export more silk products at competitive rates. India has all the four varieties of silk namely, mulberry, tassar, eri and muga. 

It is however, disheartening to note that we have not yet been able to fully exploit this advantage and make our presence felt on the international scene more prominently than at present. For this, one has to clearly understand the strengths and weaknesses of different segments of this sector.

-Mulberry segment

Its main weakness is related to a poor database, diverse range of practices leading to a divergence in productivity and quality. Generally, there is weak accent on quality consistency in production, poor transfer of technology to the decentralized sector both due to poor technology absorption and poor/inadequate follow up on laboratory findings; poor market linkages barring in Karnataka, a thriving unfair trade in the post-yarn sector, low-end technology use and reluctance to costlier technologies due to fears that there might not be corresponding improvement in price realizations. Other weaknesses are inadequate emphasis on quality in the commercial seed sector, neglect of marketing linkages and the need for a basic perspective for development of the sector which clearly defined relative roles for the central and state agencies under the federal set-up.

Among non-mulberry silks, tassar is mostly produced by tribal by rearing silkworms on forest plants. India is the largest producer of tassar silk after China and is the only producer of golden muga silk. Also, India is a major producer of eri silk.

Unlike mulberry silk production, non-mulberry silk production is unsteady and fluctuates from year to year. The central silk board has not given enough attention to their R&D and extension activities in the area of non-mulberry sericulture in spite of its potential to directly help the poor. Presently, muga and eri silks are produced mostly for self-consumption. But with their uniqueness to India, they have great potential for value-added exports.

The government must give to these varieties of silk the importance that is due to them and facilitate focused R&D, targeted extension and innovative product development for value-added exports.

Tassar

It has been noted that the following are the areas of weaknesses in production of tassar and they require to be set right. Rearing is done outdoor on trees; natural food plants are

dispersed over large areas. Thus, comprehensive extension support would entail a large number of extension agents to cater to the farmers beyond their resources. Also weavers are normally reelers and are not exploited by traders. Oak tassar culture has not yet been properly adopted, as people are new to this culture and economics are yet to be established. Also lack of disease monitoring and of control measures is noticed.

Eri

Eri silk which is largely produced in some eastern parts of the country has specific thermal proprieties. It can also be blended with wool, other silks, cotton ramie, jute or synthetic fibers. Areas of weakness in eri silk include:-

. Lack of systematic supply of adequate quantity of foliage.

. Lack of scientific method to check diseases

. Poor management during rearing

. Non-availability of separate rearing house and

. Absence of any well-organized marketing system

Muga

This golden yellow silk is quite unique to Assam and neighboring areas of Nagaland and Meghalaya. It has spread to West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh as well. While basic seed production is more or less organized, commercial seed production is to be organized systematically. More research support is needed for this activity.

Cut throat competition from China

Sericulture in India has taken a severe beating with cheap silk coming from China and flooding the Indian markets.

India imported around 9,258 tones of silk worth over six billion rupees last year from China, the world's largest silk producer.

Nearly 49,000 hectares of mulberry crop was uprooted in Karnataka as cocoon

prices crashed resulting in a loss of 3,000 tones to the country's overall silk production, according to statistics released by the Central Silk Board.

Indian silk is one of the most beautiful textile material and Indian silk saris or sarees are from silk fabrics. Silk sarees from Indian fabrics with a great saree designs are hot bridal fashion. A Indian designer creates excellent looking Indian suits and Indian bridal silk clothing for Indian ladies. Many first class silk apparel use silk material are made from genuine Asian silk such as silk blouses, silk clothes and in particular silk sarees. But there is also great underwear, knickers, boxers and panties made from silk and satin

Conclusion

The bulk of Indian silk thread and silk cloth is consumed domestically. The present market context for silk in the country is one of vigorously growing internal demand for silk fabrics, with growth rates of above 10 percent per year.

With substantial government and international subsidies for silk projects and marketing schemes, the industry has been expanding rapidly over the last few years. Silk exports too are growing rapidly. Germany is the largest consumer of Indian silk.

Today only China and India are the producers in silk. Thailand, Uzbekistan also produces silk but the quantity is very small. So we will have to keep this raw silk and fabrics for them to continue in the market. Only two countries can do it. India is the largest consumer of silk fabrics by way of sarees and so many other things. So we will have to improve our silk culture.

Today the Indian silk industry is already a major player in the global scenario and the growth prospects for the industry seem to be bullish. Measures like the encouragement of further technological and economic research in the various aspects of sericulture, standardization and quality control of silk and silk products and rationalization of marketing and stabilization of prices of silk cocoons and raw silk it could expand rapidly than ever before to create beautiful silk apparel. Author Gaurav Doshi at fibre2fashion.com

-Textile and Silk Industry in India

Current Status

The textile and silk industry holds significant status in the India. Textile industry provides one of the most fundamental necessities of the people. It is an independent industry, from the basic requirement of raw materials to the final products, with huge value-addition at every stage of processing.

Segments

Textile industry is constituted of the following segments

• Readymade Garments
• Cotton Textiles including Handlooms (Millmade / Powerloom/ Handloom)
• Man-made Textiles
• Silk Textiles
• Woolen Textiles
• Handicrafts including Carpets
• Coir
• Jute

The cottage industry with handlooms, with the cheapest of threads, produces average dress material, which costs only about 200 INR featuring fine floral and other patterns. It is not necessary to add any design to it. The women of the house spin the thread, and weave a piece in about a week.

It is an established fact that small and irregular apparel production can be profitable by providing affordable casual wear and leisure garments varieties.

Now, one may ask, where from the silk textile economy and the large profit comes in if the lowest end of the chain does not get paid with minimum per day labour charge. It is an irony of course. What people at the upper stratum of the chain do is, to apply this fabric into a design with some imagination and earn in millions. The straight 6 yards simple saree, drape in with a blouse with embroideries and bead work, then it becomes a designerˇ¦s ensemble. For an average person, it can be a slant cut while giving it a shape, which can double the profit. Maybe, the 30 % credit that the industry is taking for its contribution to Indian economy as good as 60 % this way. Though it is an industry, it has to innovate to prosper. It has all the ingredients to go ahead.

-Weakness

Massive Fragmentation:

A major loop-hole in Indian textile and silk industry is its huge fragmentation in industry structure, which is led by small scale companies. Despite the government policies, which made this deformation, have been gradually removed now, but their impact will be seen for some time more. Since most of the companies are small in size, the examples of industry leadership are very few, which can be inspirational model for the rest of the industry.

The industry veterans portrays the present productivity of factories at half to as low as one-third of levels, which might be attained. In many cases, smaller companies do not have the fiscal resources to enhance technology or invest in the high-end engineering of processes. The skilled labor is cheap in absolute terms; however, most of this benefit is lost by small companies.

The uneven supply base also leads barriers in attaining integration between the links in supply chain. This issue creates uncontrollable, unreliable and inconsistent performance.

Political and Government Diversity: The reservation of production for very small companies that was imposed with an intention to help out small scale companies across the country, led substantial fragmentation that distorted the competitiveness of industry. However, most of the sectors now have been de-reserved, and major entrepreneurs and corporate are putting-in huge amount of money in establishing big facilities or in expansion of their existing plants.

Secondly, the foreign investment was kept out of textile and apparel production. Now, the Government has gradually eliminated these restrictions, by bringing down import duties on capital equipment, offering foreign investors to set up manufacturing facilities in India. In recent years, India has provided a global manufacturing platform to other multi-national companies that manufactures other than textile products; it can certainly provide a base for textiles and apparel companies.

Despite some motivating step taken by the government, other problems still sustains like various taxes and excise imbalances due to diversification into 35 states and Union Territories. However, an outline of VAT is being implemented in place of all other tax diversifications, which will clear these imbalances once it is imposed fully.

Labour Laws: In India, labour laws are still found to be relatively unfavorable to the trades, with companies having not more than ideal model to follow a 'hire and fire' policy. Even the companies have often broken their business down into small units to avoid any trouble created by labour unionization.

In past few years, there has been movement gradually towards reforming labor laws, and it is anticipated that this movement will uphold the environment more favorable. Distant Geographic Location: There are some high-level disadvantages for India due to its geographic location. For the foreign companies, it has a global logistics disadvantage due the shipping cost is higher and also takes much more time comparing to some other manufacturing countries like Mexico, Turkey, China etc. The inbound freight traffic has been also low, which affects cost of shipping - though, movement of containers are not at reasonable costs.Lack of trade memberships: India is serious lacking in trade pact memberships, which leads to restricted access to the other major markets. This issue made others to impose quota and duty, which put scissors on the sourcing quantities from India.

giants are sourcing more and more fabrics and garments from India. Alone Wal-Mart had purchased products worth $200mn last year and plans to increase buying up to $3bn in the coming year. The clothing giant from Europe, GAP is also sourcing from India.

Anticipation As a result of various initiatives taken by the government, there has been new investment of Rs.50,000 crore in the textile industry in the last five years. Nine textile majors invested Rs.2,600 crore and plan to invest another Rs.6,400 crore. Further, India's cotton production increased by 57% over the last five years; and 3 million additional spindles and 30,000 shuttle-less looms were installed.

Forecast till 2010 for textiles by the government along with the industry and Export Promotion Councils is to attain double the GDP, and the export is likely attain $85bn. The industry is anticipated to generate 12mn new jobs in various sectors. Author Gaurav Doshi at Fibre2fashion.com.