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G.K. Nair

KOCHI, March 15

THE high cost of coir fibre, the raw material for manufacturing coir products, in the State has forced many units to bring in brown coir fibre from other producing States, mainly Tamil Nadu and, if this trend continues, the traditional coir-fibre production might face extinction.

Even though the white fibre is qualitatively superior, manufacturers of coir products prefer brown fibre which is extracted mechanically and available at almost half the price. As against Rs 16 for one kg of white fibre, the brown stuff costs Rs 8.40 in Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, an industry source said. The white fibre production is a long process involving retting etc. The low productivity in this segment has raised the cost of production, he said.

The annual production of white fibre stands at 1.2 lakh tonnes while that of brown fibre is 51,000 tonnes. The combined production of brown fibre in Tamil Nadu and other States is around 2 lakh tonnes.There are 7,323 small-scale units, and around 580 viable cooperative societies are registered with the Coir Board while there are around 20 major manufacturer exporters. In fact, 80 per cent of the total production of coir products and 75 per cent of the exports are from Kerala.

This sector employs around 3.5 lakh people of whom 80 per cent are rural women.

The problem with coir industry in Kerala is that this sector has been "over-pampered by the State Government with all kinds of protection, without helping it to stand on its own feet,'' Mr Christy Fernandez, Chairman, Coir Board told Business Line. The attitude of the people involved in this sector had not changed and as a result, modernisation of this sector is very slow, he said.

The survival of Kerala's traditional industry depends exclusively on improving the quality, productivity and reducing the cost of production and that is possible only through modernisation, he said. The workers had by and large accepted the change.

The increasing number of conversion, of late, to motorised ratt from the traditional manual method was an indication of this phenomenon, he said. A worker could now earn a moderate income daily using the mechanised method.

He said that a technology had been developed for faster retting and improving the quality of white fibre. But, cost of production would have to be reduced by higher productivity, he said. Otherwise, the industry would be moving to other States for raw material.

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