Silk Association of India (SAI), established in year 2006 is a voluntary organization registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act 1960. The main objective of the association is to strengthen network among different stakeholders and ensure proper backward and forward linkages in the entire silk production chain for better value realisation. Through effective and close coordination with the State Departments of Sericulture and the Central Silk Board,association aims for the holistic development of silk industry. Association has about 300 active members comprising of cocoon growers, Registered Seed Producers, CRC owners Reelers and Weavers. Veteran retired scientists and officersof both Central Silk Board and State Department of Sericulture are also the members of the association. meet regularly once in a month and discusses the current issues and challenges confronted by different stake holders of the industry. Karnataka silk industry which enjoyed Royal Patronage in its initial stages, has witnessed significant progress in thepast two decades. Raw silk production which was hardly 5482 MT in 1991-92 has now increased by 111% and reached 11592 MT in 2018-19. In alignment with the Indian Silk Vision 2030, Karnataka has envisaged an ambitious productiontarget of 16800 MT by 2024 and 21175 MT by 2030. This means that, virtually the production has to be increased by 45% in 2024 and doubled by 2030. It is more challenging task especiallyfor the production of import substitute bivoltine raw silk, as the current production of 2057 MT (2018-19) has to be increased by 200 % to reach 6200 MT by 2023-24.Thiscouldonly be be achieved through the massive mulberry area expansion, more number of commercial bivoltine grainages good number ofCRCs, adequate ARMS and huge human power required for implementing and quality control. ection, SAI in the past few months had interactions with many stakeholders of the industry, policy makers, technocrats and made an attempt to understand the common problems and issues to be addressed torenhancing the quality and increasing the quant ty of raw silk production especially bivoltine silk in Karnataka.
In the process SAI has In this identified few crucial issues in each facets of the silk industry thathold the key for accomplishing the set targets in the years to come. With a sole objective of sharing the views, creating a common platform and bringing all the concerned authorities together to draw their attention and re-orient their focus, SAI has organised a day’s seminar on ‘Problems and Prospects of Karnataka Sericulture’ on 23rd August, 2019 at KASSIA auditorium Vijayanagar Bengaluru. This seminar offers an excellent opportunity to exchange views, deliberate in detail and to work out short term and long term strategies for improving production, productivity and quality of sericulture and raise it to international standards thereby making Karnataka farmers prosperous. Further SAl is also proposing a massive externally aided projectfor building new R&D based programmes and infrastructure on modern lines so as to make Karnataka a leader in the production of internationally gradable raw silk. The draft project has already been shared with DOS and CSB for their response It will be attended by more than 400 stakeholders of Karnataka and peers of silk industry who are at the helm of affairs in the department of Sericulture, Govt of Karnataka and Central silk Board and whose intervention could really change the path of silk industry and take it to the newer heights.
-M.Ramachandra Gowda
Secretary
Silk Association of India
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