Jute Commissioner bats for capping B-Twill bags prices

If recommendations are accepted, this will be the first time a ceiling on price of B-Twill sacking bags is imposed

Amid unabated rise in prices of raw jute and B-Twill jute bags and forecast of lower crop this season, the Jute Commissioner has recommended to the Textiles ministry on the need to cap prices of sacking bags used for packing food grains and sugar.

If the recommendations are accepted, this would be the first occasion when there would be a ceiling on price of B-Twill sacking bags.

B-Twill jute bags prices which ruled at Rs 60,000 per tonne at the commencement of this jute season in August, have shot up to Rs 77,392 per tonne. Raw jute prices have also touched an unprecedented high of Rs 54,000 per tonne. The Jute Commissioner fears that rise in prices of raw jute and robust purchase of B-Twill bags by the government agencies will only fuel increase in rates of sacking bags.

Besides, the jute industry has indicated its inability to supply more than 200,000 bales between December 2015 and March 2016. In the light of these developments, the Jute Commissioner has also called for stepping up the dilution (in mandatory jute packing order) to 30 per cent for packaging of food grains.

"We feel that the ministry may reconsider our recommendations for granting dilution of 30 per cent for using alternative packaging material of the total requirement in December 2015 and the for the months of January, February and March in 2016 and also allow price ceiling for B-Twill sacking", Subrata Gupta, Jute Commissioner wrote to A Madhukumar Reddy, joint secretary (jute), Union textiles ministry.

The textiles ministry has already allowed the food ministry to allow 10 per cent dilution in packaging of food grains. Accordingly, the food ministry allowed the Punjab and Madhya Pradesh governments to use HDPE (high density polyethylene) bags against their projections made in November and partly in December 2015.