On this eventful and auspicious day, the Ministry of Textiles Government of India launches Integrated Skill Development Centres at 3 mills of National Jute Manufactures Corporation (NJMC) and organizes a National Seminar at Kolkata on Jute diversification, women empowerment and employment generation. The skilling Centre will be set up at the 3 Mills of the National Jute Manufactures Corporation at Kolkata under the Integrated Skill Development Scheme of the Government of India. The Skilling Centres being set up at National Mill at Howrah, Alaxendara and Kinnison Mills at 24 Paraganas, West Bengal at a cost of Rs. 6.40 crores will provide direct employment to over 5,000 people in the State of West Bengal. The CFC being set up at 3 locations in West Bengal, 1 each at Bihar and Assam at a cost of Rs. 2 crores each will provide direct employment to over 1000 women through production and marketing of jute diversified products.
The 3 Integrated Skill Development Centres were launched by the Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Textiles (Independent Charge) Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, in the august presence of Shri Babul Supriyo, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Urban Development, Housing & Poverty Alleviation; Shri Dinesh Trivedi, Hon’ble Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) and Mrs. Rashmi Verma, Secretary(Textiles), Govt. of India and Chairperson, National Jute Board, other distinguished dignitaries and several entrepreneurs & WSHG members for whose sake and services these Government agencies are dedicated. Shri Ganwar announced sanctioning of 2 more CFC, on each at Sundarbans and Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, at a cost of Rs. 2 crores each that will provide employment to over 400 women in the State. These support service schemes are aimed at empowering women through their skill development leading to self-employment. Shri Gangwar also launched a new Jute Raw Material Bank (JRMB) Scheme under which each JRMB will be supported by over Rs. 15 lakhs annually to help provide jute raw materials at reasonable price and in required quantity to the artisans, craftsperson, weavers, WSHGs and small entrepreneurs in their locality to carry forward the jute diversification activities. Hon’ble Textile Minister informed that he had a long open meeting with the jute millers, balers/sellers, exporters, trade unions and the representatives of the West Bengal Government on 18th February, 2016 at Kolkata to resolve the issue of rising prices of raw jute and its incidental effects. The meeting was also attended by Shri Moloy Ghatak, Hon’ble Labour Minister, West Bengal; Shri Kamakhya Prasad, Hon’ble MP(Lok Sabha) & Shri Sukhendu Shekar Roy, Hon’ble MP(Rajya Sabha), Union Secretary(Textiles) Mrs. Rashmi Verma, Shri A. Madhukumar Reddy, Joint Secretary (Jute) and Dr. Subrata Gupta, Jute Commissioner. Hon’ble Textile Minister informed that they had detailed deliberations with stake holder about their existing problems and the Government will certainly find out its some amicable solutions shortly.
Reiterating the vision of the Ministry of Textiles Government of India, the Union Textiles Secretary and Chairperson National Jute Board Mrs. Rashmi Verma envisages to create a modern, vibrant, integrated and world-class jute & textiles sector including handlooms and handicrafts to produce cost efficient and high quality textiles, apparels and handicrafts for domestic and export sectors. She considers diversification is the only solution for sustainability and growth of the jute sector .
“Jute is a home-grown product and pride of West Bengal. At these new skilling centres and CFC centres, our collective effort will be to return jute to its rightful place as a glory of the state. We will implement reforms and policy measures to put jute production back on the map,” said Dr. Subrata Gupta, Jute Commissioner. He further stated that the new interventions envisaged through the recently approved schemes on Jute Integrated Development Centre and the Jute Raw Materials Bank will help in furthering the jute diversification activities throughout the country and creating more employment opportunities for rural masses. NJB will strive for pushing jute bags in the areas where use of polythene bags has been banned by the NGT, further added Dr. Gupta.
NID, Ahmedabad has developed 30 new innovative designs of jute shopping & fancy bags and accessories under the Design Development project sanctioned by the NJB at a cost of Rs. 1.96 crorers. Secretary, National NJB Mr. Arvind Kumar M. firmly said that the jute bags designs developed by the NID keeping in view the future design and colour trends will not only help grow domestic demand for jute bags but will also make value addition to the exportable jute bags fetching higher export demand. NJB is encouraged with the response of the CFC’s already set up at 3 locations out of the 5 such SFC sanctioned by the Government. He said meeting out the expectations from these 5 CFC’s in the Ist phase, NJB will embark on similar diversification activities in other jute clusters of the country for taking forward the jute diversification activities in different corners of the country for protecting the environment from the menace of synthetic bags as well as creating more employment opportunities in the decentralized sector, Mr. Arvind Kumar added.