In order to revive Kashmir’s cricket bat manufacturing and other wood-based industry, a team of Union Ministry of Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises officials held a two-day visit of the valley recently to find ways for extending support.
A senior officer of Industries and Commerce Department toldGreater Kashmir that team of officials from Meerut-based Process-cum-ProductDevelopment Centre (PPDC) visited the valley to explore ways for hand-holdingof MSMEs in wood-based industry’.
“The team visited cricket bat cluster in Sethar village atSangam area of Anantnag district, which was damaged by 2014 floods to assesshow the bat industry there could be revived. This cluster has been earlierfunded by the Union MSME Ministry and now they are keen to provide an impetusto the cluster,” said the official.
As per the official, agency responsible for supply of plantand machinery at this common facility centre (CFC) for willow cleft seasoningat Sethar in Sangam is PPDC while agency for civil works execution is publicworks department.
“The approved project cost is Rs 4.61 crore in order topromote bat industry in the Valley by providing existing units with access tomodern technology. The aim is to reduce production costs while improvingproduct quality,” the official said.
He said envisaged facilities at the CFC Sethar includessetting up of 20 boilers, 50 seasoning chambers, testing laboratory, computeraided design centre, training section, display area for finished products. Thefacility will be coming up on 8 kanal and 14 marlas that have been acquired bythe state government, the official said.
“There is no production of cricket balls and footballshappening in the Valley at present which is also a concern area for the largerrevival plan of the sports goods industry. Machinery for production of ballswill be brought here for the first time with the help of PPDC,” the officialsaid.
In order to explore other ways of promoting other wood-basedindustry, officials of PPDC Meerut also visited several wood-work clusters inDowntown, Srinagar on Friday.
“It was agreed that there is a lot of scope of improvementfor wood-based industries in the valley. We need to establish CFCs in varioussectors be it handicrafts, sport goods, furniture etc. The officialsdeliberated that we need to work on export of bats manufactured in valley andneed to establish training centres in the valley,” said the director IndustriesKashmir, Mehmood Shah.
He said the visit of PPDC team has been fruitful and willhelp to revive wood-based industry.