Alternative To Jute On Anvil

Scientists are working on a viable alternative fibre to jute through biotechnological intervention under a national jute programme.

In times to come, a new fibre will come up as a viable and better alternative to the existing one, Ajay Prasad, national programme manager (jute), United Nations Development Project (UNDP), said.

Speaking at the 20th Indian Jute Industries Research Association (IJIRA) technological conference here yesterday, Prasad said scientists are tapping the genes of all existing varieties of jute and collecting germplasm to develop the new strain which will come out of the laboratory soon.

Pointing out that though jute was hailed to be an eco-friendly product the current technology which went into its processing into fibres was highly polluting, he said.

Traditional retting methods where stagnant water bodies are used to process jute are eco-unfriendly, he said adding the UNDP project will take up significant field trials of certain modern, eco-friendly technologies this season. Lamenting the shortage of quality fibres, Prasad suggested better farm management, post harvesting and marketing strategies to provide farmers and entrepreneurs with value added applications of jute.

Citing the results of a just concluded pilot project under UNDP, Prasad said all investments made for energy conservation in the jute industry have been found to pay back in less than a year.

Under a jute entrepreneurs assistance scheme, the national programme will make the energy conservation project available to interested players in the industry, he said. The countrys jute production base is not large enough to sustain the industry, he pointed out saying young entrepreneurs today are concerned over irregular supply of good quality fabric, an offshoot of such scarcity. We are at a cutting edge stage in terms of production and need more supporting units and smaller enterprises to meet the fabric demand in the industry, he said. Jute application in the automotive sector has also increased two-fold in the last decade with jute finding myriad uses in door panels, boot liners and parcel trays.

Many cars on Indian roads today have a small component of jute in them, he said. New areas of manufacture like packaging products from jute have tremendous scope for investment due to the lack of ancillary supplying units, Prasad said and urged IJIRA to draw up an action plan and bring about this synergy.