The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) on Thursday said it has purchased cocoons from farmers in Tamil Nadu, in collaboration with khadi institutions in the state.
The main objective behind the move was to help the cocoon farmers struggling to sell their crop due to lockdown and secondly to ensure continuous supply of cocoons to the khadi institutions involved in silk production, KVIC said in a statement.
"Keeping in mind their (farmers) welfare, these purchases were not as easy as it looks.As per the procedure in vogue, silk producing khadi institutions have to purchase silk cocoons from the state government regulated sericulture markets only," KVIC Chairman Vinai Saxena said.
"Hence, permission was required from the district administration as well as from sericulture department for the direct purchase from the farmers,"he added.
The farmers would have suffered great loss if KVIC had not made these purchases now, he said.
The necessity of this deal can be gauged by the fact that reared cocoon must be steamed within five days, or else the larvae would come out of it after cutting the cocoon shell, making the entire crop a complete waste, the statement said.
Cut cocoons cannot be used for reeling the silk yarn. In this sense, these purchases are blessing for the cocoon farmers, KVIC said.