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KOLKATA, Feb. 23

THE Union Ministry of Textiles has formed an expert group to study the need of the proposed Rs 458-crore Jute Technology Mission, according to Mr S.B. Mohapatra, the Union Textiles Secretary.

Mr Mohapatra said the expert group was formed at the insistence of the Planning Commission. It may be noted that the Commission is yet to approve the proposed mission despite a national announcement by the Union Textile Minister, Mr Kanshiram Rana.

He was delivering the presidential address at the International Symposium of Jute 2003 organised by Jute Manufacturers' Development Council along with the Indian Jute Mills Association, National Centre for Jute Diversification, Indian Jute Industries Research Association and National Institute of Fashion Technology.

``The Planning Commission feels that there should not be a jute technology mission just because cotton industry has a similar mission. The expert group has been entrusted with the job of defining the mission in detail'', Mr Mohapatra said.

The proposed mission was supposed to work on modernisation of the jute industry and also conduct surveys to explore new markets for jute goods.

In this context, he also said that the main reason behind Planning Commission's withholding clearance for the jute mission proposal was the dismal record of jute industry in the field of modernisation. The Commission feels that there is no immediate need to modernise the jute agricultural sector as there is hardly any shortage of the golden fibre. Dr Surya Kanta Mishra, West Bengal Minister for Panchayat, Rural Development, Health and Family Welfare, urged the Union Government's representatives, present at the function, to stop the dilution of the mandatory packaging orders.

According to him, since 1995 the mandatory packaging orders have been diluted 14 times. The last one was made for sugar and foodgrain industry where mandatory packaging has been reduced from 100 per cent to 75 per cent and 80 per cent respectively.

The Minister talked of the State Government's initiatives regarding the jute sector. ``A special cell has been formed and the cases of sick units have been transferred from the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction to this cell,'' Dr Mishra said.

He said that six new mills have come up in West Bengal, of which two have already started production. While three are conducting trial production, construction is on in the last.

Mr T. Nanda Kumar, Secretary-General of the Dhaka-based International Jute Study Group (formerly International Jute Organisation), urged the entrepreneurs to closely follow the changing patterns of consumer preferences. According to him, the global community was eagerly waiting for the jute industry to provide eco-friendly solutions for their daily problems.

Mr G.M. Singhvi, Chairman of the Indian Jute Mills Association, explained the significance of jute industry in India. According to him, four million people were engaged in jute farming, another four million in the industry and two million in the trade. He talked of a jute community of some 50 million people either wholly or partly dependent on the industry.

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