The decision by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs & Food Distribution to approve dilution of 258,000 bales of jute bags (one bale is 180 kg) for the kharif marketing season of FY18 and Rabi marketing season (RMS) of 2018-19 has unsettled the jute industry.
Total packaging requirement for RMS is pegged at 11.26 million bales and the dilution proposed is 10 per cent of this requirement.
The dilution follows an approval from the Ministry of textiles earlier for relaxing the mandatory jute bags for food grains in favour of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) bags.
Total requirement of jute sacking bags