‘Coir industry plagued by labour shortage’

Harmindar Singh, Commissioner of Industries, Tamil Nadu, has said that the coir industry is plagued by labour shortage and poor value addition.

Harmindar Singh, Commissioner of Industries, Tamil Nadu, addressing a seminar being held as part of the coir tech expo in Kochi on Monday. Photo: Vipin Chandran

Harmindar Singh, Commissioner of Industries, Tamil Nadu, has said that the coir industry is plagued by labour shortage and poor value addition.

Inaugurating a seminar here on Monday on ‘coir -futuristic technologies – vision 2020’, organised as part of the ongoing coir tech expo of the Coir Board, he urged the industry to develop affordable products for the masses. Customer needs should be analysed before launching new products, he said.

G. Balachandran, Chairman, Coir Board, said that returning to Nature is the ideal way to combat problems such as water scarcity, food shortage and pollution.

The varied uses of nature-friendly products from coir should be propagated. Application of geotextiles for preventing soil erosion, strengthening of embankments and other purposes should be widened, he said.

V.K.Wadhwa, deputy secretary, Ministry of MSME, U. S. Sarma, Director, research and development, Central Coir Research Institute, Rameswar Goel, member, Coir Board, Alicides Lopes Leao of Sao Paulo State University, Brazil, and others spoke.

An agreement was signed on the occasion between Coir Board and NRDC for developing coir lawns at Sharjah and a few other emirates.