| Raw jute output may fall 15-20% on poor monsoon | |
| Jayajit Dash / Bhubaneswar Sep 03, 2010, 00:27 | | | | | |
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Raw jute production is likely to fall 15-20 per cent short of the targeted 1.07 million bales in 2010-11 because of deficient monsoon. According to industry estimates, there may be a shortfall of 1-1.5 million bales this financial year.
Starved of the fibre crop, jute mills have stocks for only seven days. Due to shortage of water, the harvest is almost 50 per cent less in the major growing districts of Murshidabad and Nadia in West Bengal
Together, these two account for over 60 per cent of West Bengal’s jute production. The West Bengal government has declared 11 districts as drought-hit, out of which seven have jute fields.
The Indian Jute Mills Association (Ijma) has pressed the panic button and put the members on red alert. The shortfall in raw jute output has sparked fears of closure of jute mills, leading to job losses and labour unrest. Meanwhile, there is rampant hoarding of raw jute and prices have shot up by Rs 700 a quintal, which is almost 35 per higher than the normal, say sources. At present, the price of the TD-4 variety of West Bengal raw jute is Rs 3,100 a quintal.
The jute industry has blamed the Centre, the West Bengal government and jute research bodies for not making arrangements for water retting as a buffer against bad monsoon. The West Bengal agriculture department and the state textile and agriculture departments have not responded to the repeated requests by Ijma.
About four million jute farmers are engaged in sowing this inter-crop between two rice seasons on almost 80,000 hectares of land.
Over the past few years, the jute acreage has come down by almost 0.3 million hectares as farmers have moved to other remunerative crops like oilseeds and vegetables. Even the rise in the minimum support price of jute has failed to attract the farmers.
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