Rajiv Kumar Bora, State Additional Chief Secretary (Science and Technology) while inaugurating a two-day exhibition of muga silk of Assam at the Assam Textile Institute on Wednesday, focussed on the socio economic significance of muga silk sector.
The exhibition aims at highlighting the significance of Assam Silk, Muga Silk products, and providing a scope to the interested people, including fashion designers and experts among others.
Addressing the event, Mukta Nath Saikia, Director, Sericulture, said that the phenomenon of global warming has affected muga production. In view of this, there is a need to develop a strain of muga worm that can resist extreme hot weather conditions, he said.
The Sericulture Director also informed the gathering at the inaugural function that 18,335 families in the State are engaged in the muga sector and 11,663 hectares of the State land are covered by som or sowalo plantations. Som or sowalo are the two plants that act as the host plants for the muga worms. Including the BTC areas, the State produced 150 MTs of raw muga yarn last year and excluding the BTC areas, it produced 115 MTs of raw muga yarn during that year.
