The Centre has advised mills to stop importing raw jute because of its oversupply in the domestic market and instructed jute importers to provide daily transaction reports in a prescribed format until December.
The jute commissioner's office in Kolkata, representing the Union textile ministry, in a notice also recommended mills not to import jute of TD 4 to TD 8 variants (as per the old classification used in the trade) since these are adequately available within the country. "The variants make up 75 per cent of the total jute production and trade," said Sanjay Kajaria, former chairman of the Indian Jute Mills Association.
The current season's production stands at 91 lakh bales, with an opening stock of 23 lakh bales and 5 lakh bales of imported raw jute, resulting in a total estimated availability of 119 lakh bales. According 2021-22 data, jute imports amounted to 62,500 tonnes valued at Rs 449 crore, while exports reached 32,000 tonnes, valued at Rs 222 crore.
The jute commissioner recently prohibited raw jute transactions below the Minimum Support Price (MSP) level to safeguard the interests of farmers. According to trade estimates, raw jute prices have fallen as low as Rs 4,100 per quintal, compared to an MSP of Rs 5,050 for the median variety.
The Jute Corporation of India is entrusted to procure raw jute from farmers at MSP, but stakeholders have noted that their operation is not adequate to cover every corner, prompting the regulator to intervene in order to protect farmers. West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Andhra Pradesh are major producers of jute, with lakhs of farmers engaged in its cultivation.