A post without a title… From Karmakerala, with love!
Published May 20, 2010 | Shyama, my colleague, wants me to write out a post…..
Now, what shall I write? Confusion indeed…
It’s been cloudy since yesterday, with rains lashing out now and then. It’s a relief, from the scorching summer heat, but I’m feeling terribly sleepy. If given a chance, I’d simply shirk work and go have a nice sleep….Oh, no! I need to earn by bread n’ butter, nay, my Kanji and Curry. So better sit on and write on, after all I am paid to write….
I suddenly remember that the Kerala State Government had yesterday declared 2010 as the ‘Coir Year’. I ask Shyama if I may write about that. Pat comes the reply, over Skype, “Cottage industry, indigenous industry… wah bhai wah!”. Yes indeed. It’s good that the government has decided to announce the year as ‘ Coir Year’ and also has taken the initiative to launch various schemes aimed at uplifting people engaged in the coir industry.
Well, I happen to hail from the Thiruvananthapuram district. There are places near my hometown Varkala where dwell people who are part of the coir industry. But I feel the number of such people are dwindling, with more of our people looking out for making big money with not-so-indigenous methods.
Well, big money is no crime, if it’s not made in an illicit manner. But it’s sad to see indigenous industries going the wrong way. Anyway, kudos to the State Govt for taking the initiative and also for thinking of raising the pay given to coir workers from Rs. 100 per day to Rs 150 per day.
But, is that what I want to write about?
I look out and see vehicles ply on the road. It rained just half an hour ago; in fact it’s drizzling even now. My thoughts wander a bit….
The monsoons are supposed to arrive in a week’s time.
It’s this monsoon, known in Malayalam as the Edava paathi, especially as it comes almost by mid-Edavam (Edavam being a month in the Malayalam calendar), that’s made use of by farmers all over Kerala.
It’s this monsoon, the South West Monsoon that solves water-scarcity related problems and fills up wells, ponds, rivers etc.
It’s this monsoon that used to drench school kids on school re-opening day.
Hey, Did I say ‘used to’. Yes indeed! It no longer comes with that kind of precision, lament many of my friends. I too tend to agree. There was a time when the monsoon would unfailingly greet school kids walking past fields and through narrow village roads.
As a school-boy, when I used to visit Kerala during my summer vacations in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, I used to enjoy seeing this, sitting in my grandfather’s shop, which used to be there by the side of paddy fields and from where I could catch the sight of a school by the road, almost half a kilometre away.
The school is there. But alas, the shop is not there. Many of the paddy fields too are not there. My grandfather is no more. And no more can I see those many sights that characterised the Edava Paathi. But still, Edava Paathi has its own beauty, its own charm in Kerala.
But I wonder how many of our people are pondering as to whether they would be able to till their fields and sow the seeds or not. Paddy fields are vanishing all around us. Why bother? We get rice, brought in from the other states!!
And what if the paddy fields and marshes disappearing is affecting the water-table? It’s going to affect the next generation only! And we can get mineral water, sold to us at Rs 10 or Rs 15 per litre. (Am sad indeed as I happen to drink well water, unprocessed and unboiled, even now when I visit my home-town, where the well is real deep and the water still pure, unpolluted and cool. But in Ernakulam, I am forced to shell out money and buy mineral water or else get the insipid water from the taps and boil it and gulp it down, to quench my thirst. It cools off the body, but not the mind!)
Hey…I am digressing! Better not…Shyama is our editor. She is also officiating as the team leader for our bunch of writers at Karmakerala. If she is vexed at me, all hell will break loose. She can put in a word against me with our bosses Thejal, Mark and Sholto. Oh no, Shyama is my friend….
God bless you, Shyama! But God knows, God only knows perhaps that I am damn tired…can’t write, er, type out one more line….
Will wind up with this…for today!!!
Coir exports all set to scale new heights
Published February 26, 2008 | 
Alappuzha: Coir and coir products have always been major revenue earners of Kerala, touted as the land of coconuts. Alappuzha is the major hub of coir production in Kerala with almost 80 per cent of the coir factories in the State located in this district. The newly launched Alappuzha Coir Cluster Development project, with a plan outlay of over Rs. 56 crores, is expected to bring relief to the limping coir industry, plagued by many problems including shortage of raw materials, lack of modernization to bridge the gap between the production and supply demands, inadequate R & D facilities for the development and diversification of its by-products like coir pith and so on.
Coir Cluster Development project forms part of the ambitious plan of the Coir Board to raise coir export turnover to Rs.1,000 crores by 2008. It is expected to enhance the optimization of coconut husk and setting up of industries to use up coir pith to make blocks and manure among others.
Most of the export units of coir production centres are centered in and around Cherthala and Ambalappuzha taluks of Alappuzha district. The cluster help in the setting up of husk collection banks for the pooling in of coconut husks otherwise discarded or wasted, establishment of units for fibre extraction, coir yarn production and coir mats and matting units, including power loom units. It would ensure an additional 20000 employment opportunities for women.
High level delegations from many foreign countries regularly visit the Coir Board’s Central Coir Research Institute and coir industries to learn more about the innovative technologies being employed in these units.
A high level delegation from China visited Coir Board on Monday and also visited coir producing centres in Alappuzha and Trikunnapuzha and discussed various matters of the development of coir industry in China. Better technological utilization and higher exports of Coir is sure to bring in a sea change in the economy of Kerala in general and the coastal hamlets of Alappuzha in particular.