With the country fighting the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), an autonomous body under the Ministry of MSME, in collaboration with its Khadi Institutions (KIs) in Tamil Nadu, came to the rescue of cocoon farmers.
The KVIC’s Chennai office in coordination with six KIs has facilitated the purchase of around 9,500 kg of the cocoon, worth over Rs 40 lakh, directly from the farmers. Six more KIs are likely to get permission soon to purchase 8,000 kg cocoon directly from farmers with the main objective of the KVIC being to help the cocoon farmers struggling to sell their crop due to the ongoing lockdown and to ensure the continuous supply of cocoons to the khadi institutions involved in silk production.
Chairman, KVIC, Vinai Saxena said, “These purchases were not as easy as it looks. As per the procedure in vogue, silk-producing KIs have to purchase silk cocoons from the State Government-regulated sericulture markets only. Hence, permission was required from the district administration as well as from sericulture department for the direct purchase from the farmers”.
“As a result of constant efforts and ability to narrate the cocoon farmers’ hardships in front of district administration and before the sericulture department effectively by the KVIC officials in Chennai, the district administration finally granted the permission. Had we not made these purchases now, then the damage to the farmers would have been unbearable,” Saxena further said.
The necessity of this deal can be gauged by the fact that reared cocoon must be steamed within five days, or else the larvae would come out of it after cutting the cocoon shell, making the entire crop a complete waist. Cut cocoons cannot be used for reeling the silk yarn. In this sense, these purchases are blessing for the cocoon farmers, the KVIC said.
The KVIC has also successfully developed a double layered Khadi mask and has procured orders for supplying it in large quantities.
To add to its success, KVIC has recently bagged an order to supply 7.5 lakh pieces of Khadi Masks to Jammu & Kashmir Government alone.