Jute is called as the Golden Fiber worldwide. It had a deep economic and trade relationship with India and specially with state of West Bengal. The river Ganges has provided immense opportunity to grow the jute industry along the banks in terms of water, transportation, soil, weather, cheap labour and other amenities. I am talking about this golden era of Jute Industry in the early 50s and 60s. It had grown to the level it could be.
But after the introduction of Plastics and rayon products, the jute industry and its products had been scrutinized as a new venture to invest money as well as further fresh investments. The analysis projected that plastic products are far better in terms of:
1. low production costs and thats why cheap
2. better longevity
3. easy to carry and use
4. fashionable and so on...
Jute Industry started to downpour its expansion and development in the late 80s and early 90s when Haldia Petrochemical was about to start. In addition, the famous Labour Union of West Bengal put more mobile to the path of this Golden Industry. It continued to decline and Govt. took no initiative to resist the paralysis process. At present there are almost 50 jute mills are either closed or about to close.
A Rough Calculation:
1. 1 jute mill has say 3000 workers on an average.
2. 50*3000=1,50,000 workers employed directly.
3. 4 persons in a family say.
4. livelihood of 6,00,000 people.
5. a jute mill is surrounded by a small market and lots of pop and mom stores.
6. Indirect employment of say another 1000 people.
7. livelihood of 50*601000=30050000 people
8. And the chain or the multiplier effect continues and it helps to grow the local economy as well as the economy of the state.
The Faults:
1. No or less initiatives on part of existing west bengal government to save the industry.
2. The focus was only on the Haldia.
3. Excessive spread of the labour union.
4. When the whole cake rises, the share rises automatically - couldn't able to understand this simple theory.
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