SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

year has made it a hot favourite of the rural population in certain pockets
of the country. It also plays a vital role in transferring the wealth from
the richer sections of society to the poorer sections and from the urban
to the rural areas.
Sericulture is an ancient industry in India, dating back to second
century B.C. It has passed through periods of great prosperity as well as
decline. After a brief slump, subsequent to the second world war, it
entered, again, into a period of prosperity since 1945. In the last two
decades, it has taken a rapid stride towards progress. Since then, it has
really come of age, poising for a great leap forward.
Sericulture is an enterprise that involves the process of silk
production, starting from mulberry cultivation to weaving, with the
inter-phases of silk-worm rearing, silk reeling and silk twisting. There
are different varieties of silk. The major ones, known world-wide,
include mulberry, tassar, eri and muga. However, mulberry silk alone
accounts for about 95 per cent of the world production of natural silk
(1\aik and Babu 1993: 13). India has the unique distinction of being the
only country in the world, culturing all the four varieties of silk. Here
again, the mulberry silk alone accounts for nearly ninety per cent of the
total raw silk production in the country, according to the estimation in
1990-1991 (Tbid:6). India ranks second among the silk producing
countries with 16 per cent of the total world raw silk production.
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir and West
Bengal are the traditional sericulture states. These states alone account
for almost 99 per cent of the total mulberry raw silk production in India
(CSB 1992:2). Under the National Sericulture Project (NSP), initiated in
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