Amidst the coir industry, especially the traditional sector, facing headwinds due to a dearth of orders, experts and industry people have called for a concerted effort to promote traditional coir products in the domestic and international markets to overcome crisis.
The small-scale coir cooperative societies and production units are in dire straits with products including coir mats, mattings and carpets worth crores being piled up with no takers. Several units remain inactive after receiving hardly any manufacturing orders in the past three months.
While exporters have been blamed for placing fewer orders with the Coir Corporation who in turn distribute it among societies for manufacturing products, the recent trend indicates that the demand for traditional handloom mats and mattings in the export market is declining.
Citing the data available on the Coir Board website, experts point out that the lion’s share of the export forms the non-traditional products, particularly PVC-tufted mats, coir pith, and fibre. “During the financial year 2020-21, the export of coir and coir products touched an all-time high of 11,63,213 tonnes and were valued at ₹3,778.98 crore. In this record fete, the share of traditional coir products was a meagre 3% in quantity and 10% in value,” says M. Kumaraswamy Pillai, Director (Marketing) (retd.), Coir Board.
In order to sustain long-term, Mr. Pillai says the traditional sector, which employs a large number of people including women, should be able to maximise the utilisation of the installed capacity of the looms and equipment, which will increase wages and working days of coir workers.
“The quantity exported in the previous year is hardly 40% of the installed capacity in the small scale units in the Alappuzha revenue district. The indications are that it will remain static or decline further. As a long-term measure, the State government should focus on aggressive marketing of traditional coir and coir products. Similar to the export incentive, the government may introduce a special incentive for domestic market promotion for traditional coir products,” Mr. Pillai says.
There are calls to market a wide range of coir products generally known as ‘Alleppey Coir’ manufactured in Ambalapuzha and Cherthala taluks as niche products. Though Alleppey Coir has bagged the Geographical Indication tag more than a decade ago, no concrete measures have been taken by the government, exporters and various agencies to endeavour to leverage the GI and popularise the products in the market extensively to earn premium prices.
“To keep the coir sector floating, the government should find new markets for our products. It should also provide quality coir at a reasonable rate. Most often, we have to turn to Tamil Nadu for coir. It should change,” says Suresh Kumar, business manager, Cherthala Taluk Small Scale Coir Matting Producers Cooperative Society.
