Simultaneously, the employment in the coir sector is sought to be doubled from the present five lakh to 10 lakh over the five-year period.

The objective of the document is to develop the coir sector in mission mode on the lines of bamboo mission and enlist maximum investment flows and Government support. It is framed against the background of the common minimum programme of the Union Government that lays emphasis on increase in agricultural production, support to agriculture and rural industries, employment generation activities on a sustainable basis and all-round support to the modernisation of the coir sector.

The document, a presentation on which was made by Mr V. Suresh, Consultant, Coir Board, here on Friday, says that coconut palms are cultivated over 1.8 million hectares of land with an estimated annual production of 12.8 billion nuts. The coconut husk, the major raw material for the coir industry, available from these nuts has the potential for generating one million tonnes of fibre and two million tonnes of pith annually.

However, the average national utilisation of husk is 37 per cent and that of pith is 1.5 per cent. The husk utilisation varies from a low of nine per cent to a high of 47 per cent among the coconut producing states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and the union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Pondicherry.

Though the coir industry predominantly works on traditional finished yarns for ropes, matting and carpets, new avenues have emerged for the use coir in the manufacture of panel boards as replacement to timber, side walls, floors and train seats. The coconut pith is used as soil former and agricultural nutrient.

The low husk utilisation is a major area of concern for the industry and the document wants the utilisation to go up to 50-60 per cent in the five-year period from 2004-05. Towards this, it is necessary to create a grass-root level institutional mechanism for husk collection from individual to large-scale agricultural holdings and evolve synergy with extraction units.

The document points to the need for diversifying and expanding the application areas to meet the full potential of coir. The new areas cover expansion of units for coir pith utilisation, coir composite products, rubberised coir and geo-textiles.

This will require opening up of new markets and broadening of the client profile for sensitive application areas. Besides, the research and development units of agencies such as the Central Coir Research Institute have to be modernised and harmonised with international agencies to provide scientific and technological solutions to new products and processes.

Source: Business Line, August 21' 2004