The Central Silk Board (CSB) to launch its second Centre of Excellence for sericulture in Bengaluru tomorrow to boost the silk industry which has been stagnating for some time. This will provide a fillip to Karnataka’s status as the premier sericulture hub of India. The first centre was set up at Ranchi in Jharkhand.

CSB Chairman K M Hanumantharayappa said that the Centre would be launched by Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani. She would also be launching the Automatic Reeling Machine at the CSB premises.

At present, the country is producing nearly 4,000 tonnes of 4A grade of silk, equivalent to the top grade of silk imported from China. To meet the growing demand the country imports nearly 4,000 metric tonnes of high quality raw silk from China. Moreover in the last fiscal the total raw silk production also witnessed a marginal fall at 28,523 mt.

With the establishment of indigenous automatic reeling machines, the Board will be able to attain self-sufficiency and bring silk import to zero level by 2020.

The commercial model of indigenous automatic silk reeling machine has 160 to 200 ends per machine suitable for medium scale filatures. The machinery package of 200 ends capacity can produce about 20 MT of silk per year utilizing cocoons produced by around 200 farmers.

Built by CSTRI vendors in Coimbatore, the machine costs Rs 65 lakh, and the Board would offer 50 percent subsidy to Reelers who install such machines.

Under the "Make in India" initiative, CSB had been supporting installation of ARM units by private entrepreneurs to promote production of import-substitute bivoltine silk.