To promote silk industry, the government has approved continuation of three central sector schemes related to the sericulture sector during the 12th Plan period, with a budgetary allocation of Rs 375 crore.
"The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the continuation of three central sector schemes of the Ministry of Textiles relating to sericulture sector during 12th Plan. The total allocation for the schemes will be Rs 375 crore," Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari told reporters after the meeting here.
These three schemes are R&D, Training, Transfer of Technology and Information Technology Initiative (Rs 203.71 crore); Seed Organisation, Coordination and Market Development (Rs 159.44 crore) and Quality Certification System (Rs 11.85 crore).
Besides, the CCEA has approved Rs 115 crore from the overall allocation of Rs 375 crore to meet the skilled farm workers' wages under the central sector schemes, an official statement said.
The core objective of these schemes is to improve the productivity and quality of silk through R&D intervention to promote Bivoltine (BV) and Improved Cross Breed (ICB) silk for producing import substitute silk in India, it said.
"The overall effort is to increase the silk production from the level of 23,060 metric tonnes (MTs) during the 11th Plan to 32,000 MTs during the 12th Plan, it said.
The seed production units shall be equipped and strengthened to bring in quality standards in seed production network, besides increasing the production capacity to cater to the silk production target, it added.
Also, the quality certification system is proposed to be continued to promote quality upgradation and to create quality consciousness among producers and consumers of silk.
