Industrial
Promotion Policies - Central Government
National Jute Policy 2005
Preamble
The National Common Minimum Programme
(NCMP) of the Government, recognizing the importance
of jute to farmers and workers, and to the economy of
jute growing states, and its special ecological importance
world-wide, resolved that “the jute industry will
receive a fresh impetus in all respects”.
One of the six basic principles for
governance for the NCMP is “ to enhance the welfare
and well-being of farmers, farm labour and workers,
particularly those in the unorganized sector and assure
a secure future for their families in every respect”.
Government recognizes the significance of jute in India’s
economy, providing sustenance to more than 40 lakh people
including jute farmers, workmen, labourers and self
employed artisans and weavers, especially in the Eastern
and North-eastern parts of the country, where it is
the main stay of agro based industries. World over,
it has been recognized that jute and allied fibres occupy
a unique position as eco-friendly, bio-degradable renewable
natural fibres with substantial value addition at each
stage of processing. Government also recognizes the
fact that this important sector of the economy has not
been given its due importance in the recent past.
In view of this commitment, and
Taking note of the new challenges
and opportunities presented by the changing global environment
of integration in the development of natural fibres;
Acknowledging the growing demand for diversified and
innovative jute products in the world market;
Appreciating the strengths and weaknesses of our own
jute sector as well as those of our major competitors
in the field; and
Deciding to redefine the goals and
objectives, focus on thrust areas and sharpen strategy
in tune with the times, the National Jute Policy –
2005 is enunciated as follows:
Vision
Endowed as the Indian Jute Sector
is with multifaceted advantages, it shall be the policy
of the Government to develop a strong and vibrant sector
that can:
Ensure remunerative prices to the
jute farmers in the country;
Produce good quality fibre and
products to meet the growing needs of the country
and international buyers;
Increasingly contribute to the
provision of sustainable employment and the economic
growth of the nation; and
Compete with confidence for an
increasing share of the global market.
Objectives
The objectives of the policy are to
:
Enable millions of jute farmers
to produce better quality jute fibre for value added
diversified jute products and enable them to enhance
per hectare yield of raw jute substantially;
Facilitate the Jute Sector to attain and sustain a
pre-eminent global standing in the manufacture and
export of jute products;
Enable the jute industry to build
world class state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities
in conformity with environmental standards, and, for
this purpose, to encourage Foreign Direct Investment,
as well as research and development in the sector;
Sustain and strengthen the traditional
knowledge, skills, and capabilities of our weavers
and craftspeople engaged in the manufacture of traditional
as well as innovative jute products;
Expand productive employment by
enabling the growth of the industry;
Make Information Technology (IT),
an integral part of the entire value chain of jute
and the production of jute goods, and thereby facilitate
the industry to achieve international standards in
terms of quality, design, and marketing;
Increase the quantity of exports
of jute and jute products by achieving a CAGR of 15%
per annum;
Involve and ensure the active co-operation
and partnership of State Governments, Financial Institutions,
Entrepreneurs, and Farmers’ Organisations in
the fulfillment of these objectives.
In furtherance of the above objectives,
the strategic thrust will be for a new Commodity Development
Strategy incorporating the following:
Position jute and allied fibres
as superior and environmental friendly materials vis-à-vis
synthetics;
Check the erosion of the market
for traditional fibre products and encourage diversification
by timely regulatory and promotional interventions
.
Enhance the productivity/yield
of raw jute through basic, strategic and adaptive
research and improve on-farm practices.
Modernise the jute industry to
improve efficiency in production and processing, to
reduce cost and enhance product quality;
Address the issues pertaining to
the welfare of the large number of workers engaged
in the jute industry, which is primarily labour intensive,
and to improve their working environment and moluments
of the workers conducive to a reasonable quality of
life.
Increase exports through innovative
marketing strategies and improvement of product design
and quality consciousness in the jute industry;
Strengthen efforts to minimize
any environmental degradation which may result from
the production of these fibres.
Sectoral Initiatives
A. Agriculture
Initiatives in the agriculture
sector will embrace a basic, strategic and adaptive
research on jute within a time frame to ensure qualitative
and quantitative improvement of the crop. The existing
gene pool of jute and mesta will be strengthened, and
new breeding techniques will be explored.
Technology transfer will be encouraged
through industry-agriculture linkages and the present
extension system will be reorganised and restructured
to make it more target oriented.
The organized Seed Production System
will have effective linkages with all concerned Departments
to ensure production and availability of quality seeds.
Under the Jute Technology Mission,
new market yards will be set up wherever necessary and
post harvest practices and machinery will be modernised
through interface with manufacturing firms.
Infrastructural facilities will be
provided for procurement and farmer information centres
will also be an integral part of the services to be
rendered to farmers. The grading system will be restructured
to make it more objective. Efforts will be made to motivate
and provide incentives to farmers to produce better
quality jute.
B. Modernisation
of the Jute Industry
The jute industry in India is beset with many problems,
including competition from the synthetic sector, high
labour cost, obsolescence of machinery and uneconomic
working. These factors have led to large scale sickness
in the industry.
The approach for the jute sector
will be directed towards reviving the jute economy through
supportive measures covering research and development;
technology upgradation; the creation of infrastructure
for storage and marketing of raw jute; and product and
market development activities for jute and diversified
jute products.
The Government will ensure a reasonable
market for jute products by continuing the ongoing policy
of reserving foodgrains and sugar to be packed in packaging
material made from jute. The quantum of reservation
will be as approved by the Government from time to time.
In order to achieve this, a concerted
Programme for the Modernisation and Technological Upgradation
of the Manufacturing Sector will be taken up. This will
include
(i) reorientation of manufacture of
jute goods as per current international requirements
while addressing the issues of quality and cost competitiveness;
(ii) to energise the jute yarn and twine making sector
in view of the rise in demand for Jute Diversified Products;
(iii) adopting environmental friendly
manufacturing processes in the jute sector; and
(iv) augmenting the research and development
efforts to commercialise jute technical textiles including
geo-textiles. The existing schemes like the Textile
Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) and the JMDC Incentive
Scheme for Modernisation of the Jute Industry will be
strengthened.
C. Public Sector
Enterprises
Efforts will be made to restructure and revitalize the
existing Public Sector Undertakings in the Jute Sector,
namely the Jute Corporation of India and the National
Jute Manufactures Corporation. Procurement of raw jute
by the Jute Corporation of India will continue and the
Government will continue to compensate the Jute Corporation
of India for procurement of jute under the Minimum Support
Price (MSP scheme). The Government has already initiated
steps to revive the Khardah and Kinnison units of the
National Jute Manufactures Corporation Ltd.
D. Marketing
The objectives of the effort for marketing will be
(i) to improve the ratio of domestic
consumption to exports from the existing 82%:18% to
65%:35% in the next ten years,
(ii) to encourage the establishment of professional
marketing wings in the organized jute sector, and
(iii) to identify tariff and non-tariff
barriers against the export of jute and jute products
from India, and develop appropriate strategies to remove
such barriers.
Domestic Marketing:
Considering the immense potential
of jute products in the domestic market, focused attention
will be given to untapped sectors. The thrust will be
on adopting suitable market promotion programmes for
increasing consumer awareness, and highlighting the
environmental advantages of jute by working closely
with environment groups.
With the objective of increasing exports to Rs.5000 crore
by 2010 from the present level of Rs.1000 crores:
A multi-disciplinary institutional
mechanism will be established to formulate policy
measures and specific action plans, including those
relating to the WTO and for closely monitoring financing
proposals;
Strategic alliances will be forged
with an aim to gain access to technology;
A brand equity fund, exclusively
for jute and jute products will be set up. This will
be consistent with WTO norms;
The proposed Jute Board will incorporate
an Export Promotion Council which will play the role
of facilitator and professional consultant for dealing
with disputes under various agreements of the WTO,
establishing warehousing facilities in major jute
and jute product importing countries, and identifying
the existing patent issues with a view to patenting
Indian R&D efforts.
E. Research and Development
For the successful development of
next-generation Jute Machinery to reduce the cost of
production and / or quality improvement, the following
measures have to be put in place in a time span of five
years:
a) To complete comprehensive Benchmarking (through Technology
Audit) to assess the present technological status of
the jute industry.
b) To formulate a 5 year Plan for machinery development,
for both the organized and decentralized sectors (and
also for the cottage industry).
c) To establish a separate R &
D set-up in the area of a Public–Private Partnership
in consultation with the appropriate Ministries of the
Government of India. IJIRA, the only Textile Research
Association related to jute under the Ministry of Textiles,
will be revamped to give a market and industry driven
focus to its Research and Development efforts.
F. Diversified and Composite
Jute Products and Jute Handicrafts
There is an expansion of the market
for jute composite products and geo-textiles in both
the domestic and International sectors. Continued
and focused attention will be given to handicrafts,
which will include the upgradation of skills, the
creation of a better work environment, design and
technology intervention, and the development of clusters
for specific crafts with common service facilities,
and the overall improvement of infrastructure, and
market development.
A full-fledged Design and Development
Centre, and dedicated retail outlets in public-private
initiative mode for diversified jute products in all
the towns and cities with a population of more than
5 lakhs will be established.
G. Institutional Restructuring
and establishment of a Jute Board
To rectify the systemic ills of lack
of coordination among the several jute related organizations
under different Ministries and Departments of the Government,
and to synchronise and synergise the integrated development
of the jute sector as a whole, the proposal to set up
a National Jute Board will be implemented. This is necessary
to synthesize the various layers of Governmental decision-making
in a federal set up. This body will subsume, merge,
and integrate the functions of various institutions
currently operating in the jute sector. The mandate
of the proposed Jute Board will be as follows:
i) To restructure the present
regulatory framework so as to provide adequate incentive
to all stakeholders in the jute sector to produce goods
and services in an efficient manner so as to maximize
socio-economic benefits.
ii) To subsume and revamp the Office of the Jute Commissioner
and transform it from an office of regulation to a facilitator
of development in the jute sector.
iii) To establish a Jute R&D fund
and Venture capital assistance fund for the development
of efficient jute manufacturing machinery, and the commercialization
of new products;
iv) To strengthen and facilitate the
growth of HRD institutions like the Institute of Jute
Technology (IJT) on innovative lines.
v) To review and revitalise the working
of the R& D institutions like the Indian Jute Industries
Research Association (IJIRA) to focus research on industry
needs.
vi) To subsume, merge and professionalise
field organisations like Jute Manufacture Development
Council (JMDC) and the National Centre for Jute Diversification
(NCJD) under the Ministry of Textiles to enable them
to play their assigned role of facilitators of change
and growth effectively.
vii) To explore the possibility of
establishing a National Institute of Natural Fibres
with the objective of harmonizing developmental and
promotional activities pertaining to all natural fibres
and to have a better sharing of experience and knowledge
in related fibres
viii) To establish a National Jute
and Jute Textile Museum in India to preserve and highlight
the heritage of jute.
Subsidiary institutions functioning
under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture under
Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE/ICAR)
like the National Institute for Research on Jute and
Allied Fibre Technology (NIRJAFT), and the Central Research
Institute for Jute and Allied Fibres (CRIJAF) will be
integrated with the Jute Board in a meaningful relationship,
as also the functions and issues presently being administrated
by the Ministry of Agriculture.
A Jute Technology Mission, which
has been approved in principle by the Planning Commission,
will be operationalised with the appropriate sub-structure
of mini-missions. The objective is to consolidate the
gains from past efforts in the jute sector, and help
it to emerge as an intrinsically competitive and integrated
entity. The Jute Technology Mission will encompass the
sub-systems pertaining to agricultural research and
seed development, agronomic practices, harvest and post
harvest techniques, the primary and secondary processing
of raw jute, diversified product development, market
development, and marketing and distribution.
I. Human Resource Development
and Labour Welfare
With the rise of inescapable competition
facing the Indian jute sector, both in the international
and domestic markets, it will be the endeavour of the
Government to facilitate upgrading the skills of both
workers, and supervisors and managerial staff who are
employed in the jute industry. The Government will support
programmes of organisations and institutions engaged
in HRD that address the professional manpower needs
of the industry, as well as at the cutting edge level
of workers and shop-floor supervisors. Institutions
will be encouraged to network and pool their resources
and co-operate amongst themselves. IT will become an
integral part of the HRD effort recognizing its vital
role in a progressively IT driven global economic environment.
In recognition of the pioneering
role of IJT, this institution will be assisted to grow
and progress as an autonomous institution on innovative
lines. It will be developed as an International Centre
for Education in Natural fibres.
The Government will ensure that statutory dues of the
workers engaged in jute mills are paid in time. The
working conditions and emoluments of workers should
improve so that the quality of life of such workers
is enhanced. The Government will ensure that there is
no exploitation of labour.
J. Delivery
Mechanisms for Implementation of the Policy
The organisations working under the Ministry of Textiles
will be reoriented, right sized, and restructured, to
act as facilitators instead of regulatory bodies, with
the mandate and role of each being reviewed and redefined
over the next two years. Simultaneously, regulations
and controls will be reviewed and progressively reduced.
Some of the specific changes will be the establishment
of the Jute Board, structured to serve the developmental
needs of the industry and restructuring of the operational
arms in charge of exports and diversification to enable
them to devise dynamic strategies for the export markets.
In conclusion, the Government is
committed to providing a conducive environment to enable
the Indian jute and jute textile sector to realize its
full potential, to achieve global excellence, and to
fulfill its obligations to the different sections of
society. In the fulfillment of these objectives, the
Government will enlist the co-operation and involvement
of all stakeholders and ensure an effective and responsive
delivery system.
