Centre to frame modified jute policy aimed at diversification

KOLKATA: The Centre will soon come up with a modified policy for the jute industry, aimed at the diversification of products with possibility of bulk usage.

Working on the directive of the PMO, the Union Textile Ministry has been working with the National Institute of Design (NID) since last June for creating more and more acceptable designs for the diversification of jute products, National Jute Board (NJB) Chief Finance Officer N Sengupta told PTI.

"We are holding meetings and hopefully within a couple of months' time we will be able to come up with a modified policy," Sengupta said.

He said that Textile Ministry Secretary S K Panda, along with Joint secretary, Jute Commissioner and other stakeholders, would meet at the NJB's board meeting on September 19 in Kolkata where a discussion in this regard was highly possible.

Elaborating on what the NID was trying to do in regard to the diversification of the jute products, the Jute Board official said: "It can be a new type of fabric or it can be a composite. The NID knows the market very well. They have many ideas and may come out with something new using the plasma technology."

Sengupta said, "We have to find out the areas where diversification can be done and then we need to place it in the market... We have to make the products marketable," he stated.

The new policies would also help attract new entrepreneurs and also employment opportunities would increase, Sengupta said.

"Not only new employment avenues but new products will also come up. Farmers will be benefited and overall the money cycle will be improved. We are very hopeful about the success," he stated.


Asked whether any inadequacy of the existing policies for the Jute Industry has forced the Ministry of Textile to consider a new one, Sengupta said: "The existing policies are absolutely correct. There are no follies in them. The problems in this field have been identified aptly and the suggestions are to the mark. But we are unable to get the medicine."

"This time we will induce certain activities in the existing policies," he said.

"All the diversifications of the fibre till date had been done by the Jute Board on the basis of the current policies... While a few were stabilised in the market many could not be implemented," he said.

Blaming the limited capacity of the Jute Board for failing to expand the market, Sengupta said that the sector badly needed big industry houses like Reliance to improve the marketing of the fibre.

"In the current policies, there might be several ways to expand the market size but we could not do it... To be honest we do not have that capacity to expand it. We needed a jumbo like Reliance to improve the marketing," he said.