Bihar is again honoured to make the first Jute park in the country.Then first jute park named Punrasar Jute Park is coming up at Maranga in Purnia district at a cost of Rs 600 crore. The seven unit jute park will mop up jute from jute farms in the hinterland of the Kosi region in north-east Bihar for production of jute yarn.
The products and finished goods will be marketed across the country. This will check export of jute from the farms in the Kosi belt to jute mills in other states.
First unit of the jute park at Maranga, the production-cum-training centre with 20 metric tonne per day jute yarn production capacity, will become operational in three months. The plant and machinery for the production-cum-training centre has been imported from China, said Sunil Chaudhary, a representative of Punrasar Jute Park Ltd, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) promoted by an industrialist from Kolkata, P C Choraria.
A joint venture of the Punrasar Jute Park Ltd and the state government, the park which would have five per cent stake as it has provided about 45 acres of land in Maranga industrial area in Purnia town through the Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority (BIADA). BIADA executive director, Bhogendra Lal, on Thursday said Rs 7.25 crore had already been invested in developing the jute park. He said Rs 44.5 crore would be invested in infrastructure development of the park.
The jute park with its seven units will provide direct and indirect employment to around 20,000 people, Chaudhary said adding that SPV promoter P C Choraria has been successfully running the Rameshwar jute mill in Samastipur district for which he had received award from the Bihar government for good production of jute yarn. He also runs a couple of jute mills in West Bengal, Chaudhary said.
The next to come up would be its anchor unit with 150 metric tonne per day jute yarn production capacity, said Chaudhary. Jute from the farms in Araria, Katihar and Purnia districts will be supplied to th park, he said.
Other five units of Punrasar Jute Park would be for production of jute furnishing materials, jute shopping bags, handicrafts, jute bags, jute matting and a common facility unit for dyeing, bleaching, sewing and pressing, he said.
The closure of the Katihar jute mill over two decades back, which was the only one in the the Kosi region at that time, led to export of jute to other states. Jute farming had started to decline after that, he said adding that agriculture production commissioner A K Sinha had held several high level meetings to encourage intensive jute farming by facilitating quality seeds and modern agriculture equipment for increasing farm yield to jute growers.