Women power weaving magic with tasar silk

BANGALORE: Masuta, a producers’ co-operative in the tasar silk sector, has become operational. The Mahila Suta Tasar (Masuta) Co-operative, formed under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956, is working on expanding the offerings under tasar silk.

The co-operative, which has currently 1,600 yarn reelers in Jharkhand and one district of Chattisgarh, aims to bring this number to 2,500 by the end of ’08. The process of creating a co-operative was aided through financial assistance provided by the Union rural development ministry.

In the initial instant, the Central Silk Board had initiated a project for promoting vanya (wild) silk. Tasar, along with eri, muga and oak tasar, are the vanya silk varieties.

“We are exploring options of introducing tasar into knitwear and working on developing a pure-tasar scarf,” a source said. Interestingly enough, there has been development of other vanya silk products like the eri denim jeans.

Sources said that tasar yarn sales have been brisk and that the plan is to double sales from the current 5,000 tonnes by next March.

However, the possibility of doubling tasar usage is dependent on the price movement of smuggled Chinese tasar, which comes into India from Nepal.

Although mulberry silk in China (like in India) accounts for bulk of the output, cheap Chinese tasar is being increasingly used by reelers and weavers in major centres like Bhagalpur.

“The price differential between Chinese and India tasar can be at least 15-20%. As Indian tasar is not suitable for use as warp in the looms, most weavers prefer the Chinese tasar yarn,” sources said.

On their part, agencies like Masuta are now working on improving yarn making machines to ensure that Indian tasar becomes suitable for use as warp.

Besides tapping reelers in its home ground, demand for tasar yarn and fabric is seen emanating from traditionally strong mulberry centres like Kanchipuram and even Coimbatore.

India, which is the world’s second largest silk producer with an annual output of 15,000 tonnes, has an output of 1,000 tonnes of vanya silk.