State apathy responsible for downslide in Khurkhul's silk output
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Okendro Khundongbam

Imphal, November 18 2015: State apathy coupled with collective indifference have been responsible for the downward slide in the interest to increase the overall output of silk in Manipur's Khurkhul village famed for its silk international known as "Khurkhul Muga or Leima Muga" .

For hundreds of years, the village of Khurkhul, 18 km drive from Manipur's Capital City Imphal, the women of Khurkhul have raised silkworms.

Rearing of silkworms had been a domestic profession since time immemorial.

These worms are fed with fresh mulberry leaves on the hours until they spin golden yellow cocoons of raw silk.

Traditionally, the womenfolk boil the cocoons one by one and the fibrous silk is unraveled and wound on to a stick locally called "Chei".

Now the products are measured in terms of kg instead of the traditional Chei.

State apathy responsible for downslide in Khurkhul's silk output

However, due to there seems to be a decline in the overall interest of the villagers to make the best out of their age old tradition of not only rearing silk but also producing the finest silk production.

Registered in 1984, the Women Silk Work, Rearers, Planters and Spinners' cum Weaving Cooperative Society had been making efforts to increase the pace of production in a collective effort.

There was not much progress made despite the Government of Manipur receiving funds from Japan's Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) for a project to revitalise silk industry in the late 1990s. However, the project failed miserably.

Even a statement by evaluators claimed that the detail plan of the project was overhauled in the fourth year of the project, causing the project's costs and time period to exceed the original target.

Although the beneficiary survey confirmed improvement in living standards, cocoon production, raw silk production and employment generation remained at 50 to 60% of the target in 2010 resulting in the effectiveness and impact to be rated as fair.

The assessment report then said that the main reason behind the low level of cocoon production is that nearly 40% of the beneficiaries have reduced or stopped sericulture activities; even those farmers who are continuing sericulture activities have been rearing lower than the target number of silkworms because of an overall lack of knowledge in mulberry production and silkworm rearing, as well as improper rearing practices due to a lack of rearing skills and necessary equipment.

The evaluation report had clearly stated that there was inadequate institutional support to the sericulture farmers and it has affected the overall level of achievement.

The State government also failed to create a mechanism to secure the economic independence of the farmers and cooperative societies.

The evaluators finally termed the project "unsatisfactory" .

It was hoped that the silk industry was likely to expand with villagers taking up mulberry tree plantation and with the introduction of modern mass production techniques.

With such situation plaguing the overall situation of silk production, Khurkhul villagers are disheartened but still hope that there will be a bright future in the long run.

A village source informed that as of now, though the decline in the village production was die to state apathy, the villagers now know what actually went wrong in the first phase and the mistake was likely to be corrected in the future.