J&K contributes 19% of wool production in India
Srinagar: The J&K UT contributes 19 percent in the annual wool production of the country with its annual wool production of seven million Kilograms against the 40 million Kilogram production across the country.
The revelation came to fore during a meeting chaired by Additional Chief Secretary Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare Department Atal Dulloo on Friday.
The meeting was held to deliberate upon different aspects of promotion of the wool based industry in J&K.
It was revealed in the meeting that the domestic produce of wool in the country was not adequate and the industry is dependent on imports worth 77 million Kgs per year.
In the meeting it was revealed that the considerable wool production amalgamated with installation of processing units would result in bolstering the economy of the UT.
The meeting was informed that proper market interventions were being looked into for upliftment of raw wool from farmers.
“The lack of marketing interventions, processing infrastructure (scouring/carding etc) of the sector would be incentivized,” the officials said in the meeting.
It was informed that the road map would be time-bound, innovative, self-sustaining therefore a factor in the local GDP.
The meeting was informed that the government plan would focus on creating capacity to convert raw wool in to value added products.
Meanwhile, Dulloo stressed upon the officers to devise a viable framework for making the wool industry a success in the UT. He emphasised on the fact that wool is the only raw material that is available in abundance here and can support a large industrial setup.
He maintained that such an industry has a potential to provide employment to thousands of our youth thereby tiding over the problem of unemployment here. He asked the officers to look into all the aspects of reviving this industry here including the one on PPP mode. He observed that a well-thought plan has all the chances of being successful once implemented efficiently.
The ACS, Industries & Commerce reiterated that the promotion of the trade was the priority with the government and said the New Industrial Policy has all the attributes for promoting trade and business across J&K.
He noted that any proposal for reviving this industry would be supported unequivocally. He gave out that J&K has enough resources to support any such initiatives. He further asked them that they might look into the possibility of finding the relevant Central Schemes for supporting this initiative.
KV News
