From 2.70 lakh hectare in 1998-99, mulberry acreage in India plummeted to 1.78 lakh hectare in 2008-09 .jpg) Once a booming industry in Karnataka employing thousands of people, sericulture has now slipped several positions due to declining mulberry acreage. Not only Karnataka, the national picture of mulberry cultivation is also grim, sounding the death knell for the industry. From 2.70 lakh hectare in 1998-99, mulberry acreage in India plummeted to 1.78 lakh hectare in 2008-09.The picture of mulberry plantations running into thousands of hectares in and around Bengaluru is bygone. Today, hi-tech office buildings, commercial centres and shopping malls stand tall, appreciating the skyline of the city. The silk industry has lost the battle to the IT boom, fuelling massive real estate development in the state.
The abysmal state of the industry prompted ConstructionBiz360 to run a poll, where a majority of 67% voters felt that aggressive real estate activity in Karnataka has taken the shine off silk. However, 17% voters chose to remain neutral, while the remaining 17% presented conflicting views.
Admitting urbanisation has greatly affected the silk industry, H Hanumanthappa, chairman of Central Silk Board (CSB) in an exclusive telephonic interview with the portal, says, “Bengaluru, Mysore and Kolar are the prime mulberry growing regions in Karnataka. However, rapid real estate development has led to substantial loss in mulberry acreage.”
Mr Hanumanthappa further adds, “CSB’s concerted efforts to improve raw silk productivity has paid off and despite reduction in mulberry acreage, silk productivity has gone up in recent times.”
When asked to mention two key steps, his picks include death of worms has been reduced to zero as the incubation period is now taken care of by the chawki rearing centres. Besides, farmers are now supplied with disease-free worms. The next would be reduction in rearing period by 10-15 days. Moreover, in collaboration with the state government, CSB is now exploring various regions in northern Karnataka comprising Bagalkot, Belagaum, Raichur and others suitable for mulberry cultivation.
Now to know the level of impact, scroll down and read.
Losing lustre
In an attempt to put Karnataka on the global IT map and attract foreign investors, major regions of the once popular mulberry belt (the stretch between Bengaluru and Hosur) has given way to the Electronic city or Ecity, leading to a significant drop in the state’s share in national silk production and exports from 60% to 37% currently.
According to CSB statistics, the state’s land parcel under mulberry cultivation fell from 1.66 lakh hectare in 1998-99 to 0.77 lakh hectare in 2008-09. Moreover, nearly 36,000 hectares of land in the state that cultivated mulberry has been converted for industrial purposes, points out the CSB chairman.
In conversation with a TJCD[i] correspondent, Mr Sridhar, director at Silk Touch, a Bengaluru-based firm having a rich experience of two decades in manufacturing and trading silk blended fabrics, says, “Unbridled real estate growth post IT-boom has severely impacted the state’s mulberry silk industry in the sense that silk production dropped drastically over the past few years as huge tracts of land were taken away for construction purpose and unavailability of skilled labours increased.”
In sharp contrast, Karnataka at present accounts for around one-third of the country’s IT exports and is the operational hub for nearly 3,000 IT/BPO firms, propelling a steady rise in the demand for property.
Jeeta Bandopadhyay
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