National fibre policy faces roadblock

The exercise to formulate a National Fibre Policy has countered some problem as the Union minister for textiles Dayanidhi Maran has rejected the draft policy for jute and asked the committee to take into account the new submissions made by the jute industry. Maran has convened a meeting on January 6 to take a fresh look at the draft policy. The last meeting was held on December 18.

The Union textile ministry is busy trying to formulate a national fibre policy and for which Dun & Bradstreet, a consultancy firm, has been engaged as consultant and a number of subgroups have been formed with the stake holders in the respective industry like synthetic fibre, cotton and textile, jute and so on.

The Union textile ministry is expected to prepare the final draft of the national fibre policy by the end of March 2010.

While agreeing to the need for such policy, the jute industry has proposed that the industry should be allowed to introduce contract farming to eliminate the middlemen. Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA) in its submission has proposed that the government should encourage contract farming for jute to neutralise middlemen and develop a cold chain/farm gate strategy where it would be imperative for the mills to develop a relation directly with the growers without involving middlemen.

Also, it has suggested that mechanised farming should be promoted for conducting retting to derive significant impacts on farm productivity and raw jute quality. IJMA has observed that with 80% of farm size being sub-optimal and farmers commanding land holding of a meager 0.2-0.3 ha in average, this will open ways for additional estimation of fibre and investment that could be garnered in the field over the next 15 years.

The IJMA is of the view that use of GM seeds should be encouraged to have higher yield of raw jute.

For that, assistance from Monsanto and Advanta sould be sought. According to an insider of the industry, the suggestions put forward by the IJMA chairman Sanjay Kajaria found favourable response from the union textile minister.

But, if all these proposals are accommodated in the national fibre policy, then the jute millers might find themselves compelled to modernize their mills, which they have been resisting for years.