Srinagar: Centre has given a new lifeline to the wool sector after it approved a project to create a raw material bank in Kashmir.
Department of Handicrafts and Handlooms, Kashmir, will be the nodal agency for the raw material bank. The bank will end the monopoly of the middlemen and suppliers who were exploiting the sheep breeders.
Central Wool Development Board (CWDB), Ministry of Commerce approved the Rs 50 lakh project after hectic deliberations.
“Implementing agency (Directorate of Handicrafts and Handlooms) has proposed granting Rs 50 lakh for one unit of revolving fund for marketing of raw material in J&K. In the project, IA (UNDP, Nowshera, and Srinagar) which is under the administrative control of Directorate of Handicrafts and Handlooms, will procure the wool directly from sheep breeders at a fixed price. The IA proposed to create a wool bank in the UT of J&K. The objectives of the project include ensuring adequate availability of certified/graded wool, restructuring the wool sector, provide better prices to the sheep breeders. It is also proposed to do value addition in the procured wool by scouring and carding and supply value-added wool to artisans and traders,” said a CWDB communiqué.
This is the first phase of the project which has been approved by the Centre. “Currently there is a lot of distress sale of wool happening. This raw material bank will end this distress sale. We will be buying wool from the sheep breeders directly. The support price will be determined by the industries department,” Mehmood Ahmad Shah, Director, Department of Handicrafts and Handlooms, told The Kashmir Monitor.
Department of Handicrafts and Handlooms will be carding the wool at its Bagh-e-Ali-Mardan Khan facility before distributing it among the societies for namda making.
“We have a carding machine at Bagh-e-Ali-Mardan Khan. We will be carding the wool purchased from the breeders. It will be given to societies for namda and yarn making. If this project takes off well, the center will approve the second phase so that it is taken to the next level,” he said.
