The Jute Commissioner's (JC) office has cautioned against a central government proposal to exempt wheat from the ambit of the mandatory packaging act, saying that the move will impact the jute industry.
The JC in their presentation at the meeting of the Committee of Secretaries under the Cabinet Secretary held on April 22 has highlighted that 14.2 million mandays of job loss would be affected if the Rabi crop (Wheat) was brought out of the Jute Packaging Materials (Compulsory Use in Packaging Commodities) Act, 1947.
"In our presentation we have pointed that total mandays involved in Rabi crop is 14.2 million and no way it can be compensated by alternate means if wheat is exempted from the jute packaging act in one go," Jute Commissioner Subrata Gupta told PTI.
Wheat packaging was almost half of the jute bag order for the industry and valued at about Rs 3,000 crore per annum.
According to sources, the committee was unhappy with the affairs of the jute industry, which include rising government subsidy for the sector, quality issues and short supply of the required quantity, creating risks for the Centre in proper food storage.
"We have to check the quality issues to a great extent and bring down the price by almost 9 per cent by introducing 580 gm jute bags against the present 665 gm bags," Gupta said.
He said the greatest enemy of the jute industry now was unprecedented price rise.
"Level of production shortage in raw jute do not reflect in the rise in prices that happened in the recent months," Gupta said.
The Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA) has written to the Union Textiles Secretary expressing surprise over the proposal to exempt wheat from the ambit of the mandatory packaging act, despite 85 per cent of the total intended supply already been provided by the mills in the 2016-17 Rabi season.
