Tk 140cr silk development project starts next month

The Textile Ministry is going to implement a World Bank-financed project from next month to promote silk products in the country.

The Tk 140 crore (13 million US dollars) Silk Foundation project is aimed at boosting production of quality silk worm, ensuring training for the growers and helping the farmers from cooperatives.

AKM Zahangir Hussain, State Minister for Textile, told The Daily Star at the Manikganj Aysha Abed Foundation yesterday that the main field level work under the project will be in the silk producing zones of Rajshahi, Jamalpur, Sherpur and Manikganj. The head office of the project will be in the capital.

The minister was enquiring into the reasons why the public sector silk production projects were incurring losses. As a part of his investigation, he will visit some projects in Rajshahi today.

He said that he also talked with official of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee - the lone non-government organisation which produces the country's 40 per cent silk yarn - to know their profit earning mechanism.

Arong, BRAC's sales and display centre, markets its own silk products like Saree, Punjabee, Selwar-Kamij and other wears and wall decoration pieces produced by their contract growers and weavers.

The State Minister visited different raw silk producing units and also handlooms producing silk products in the district Dr Makbul Ahmed Khan, Textile Advisor to the Ministry, Dr Riaz Khan, head of BRAC's silk project and a group of journalists accompanied the State Minister.

The silk industry in the country now requires some 250 tonnes of raw silk per year but hardly 30 tonnes are produced, it was gathered.

Riaz Khan told The Daily Star that though silk products were high value added clothing items and had a huge market abroad, neither the government nor the private sector was making adequate investment in the field. He said BRAC was competing with China to export its products to UK, Canada, France, Japan, and the Netherlands.

Talking to The Daily Star, a group of silk worm farmers and weavers said formation of cooperatives may help them earn higher profit. Silk reeling workers alleged that they were given only Tk 20 to Tk 30 a day for 7 am to 5 pm work.

Weavers earn only Tk 12 to Tk 15 for producing one yard of silk cloth. "I can weave two to three yards a day," said one weaver.

BRAC officials, however, said that they maintained about 30 per cent profit margin on the finished products and that the growers and weavers were properly paid.

It could not be known whether there will be any minimum wages for silk industry workers under the WB-financed project.