Hardly 30 per cent of the coconut husk available in the Malabar region of Kerala is being procured, with the rest remaining unutilised or destroyed, according to Coir Board chairman V S Vijayaraghavan. This is against the backdrop of a growing shortage of coir fibre for traditional industry, he told reporters here on Tuesday, and called for efforts to overcome these twin gaps.
Among the steps he suggested was speedy mechanisation at all levels of the coir industry, some of which has been initiated by the Coir Board and the Kerala government’s coir development department.
The mobile defibering machine developed by Central Coir Research Institute (CCRI) in Alapuzha was likely to revolutionise the sector, Vijayaraghavan said, adding that the machine was further modified by the National Coir Research and Management Institute (NCMRI) and was being popularised in a big way in the coir sector. The state government was supplying the machine to coir co-operative societies and coir export units at subsidised rates, he said.
Export prospects bright
Citing the 36 per cent growth in coir exports in the past three years, he said the coconut byproduct had immense scope for development with the growing environmental consciousness around the globe set to keep export prospects bright.
The number of importing countries rose from 70 in 2007-08 to 105 in 2009-10, while exports rose to Rs 804 crore from Rs 508 crore. USA is the largest importer of Indian coir products, accounting for 33 per cent of the total exports, followed by Germany and the UK.
He said the Union ministry of micro-, small- and medium-enterprises had approved a Scheme for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (Sfurti) to make the traditional industries like coir sector globally competitive.
The coir board has allotted Rs 93 crore for implementation of the scheme out of the total allocation of 243 crore at its disposal. The Central government has declared this year as a ‘Year of Coir.’