Hundreds of people, mainly women, are engaged in the production of silk yarn in Bagha and Charghat upazilas and their living standards are improving as well as the local silk yarn production is boosting.
With the training and financial support from Bangladesh Sericulture Development Board, many village people including women have become self-reliant by adopting silkworm farming side by side with their regular household activities.
To promote sericulture and its industry through entrepreneurship development at different levels of production, BSDB has set up an ideal sericulture village at Meerganj of Bagha upazila, informed an official of BSBD.
The five-year project entitled "Extension and Development of Sericulture in Public and Private Sector in Bangladesh" was implemented across the country involving Taka 300 million, the source mentioned.
Under the project, 23 ideal sericulture villages were set up in the potential silk-growing areas as a model to improve the capacity of small and marginal farmers to establish high-yielding mulberry orchards and produce superior-quality of silk cocoons.
The source added that the multidisciplinary activities provide unique job opportunities to the marginal farmers, landless poor, and rural and contribute a lot to poverty reduction.
It is learnt, that there are about 10,000 private handlooms with a capacity of producing 30 million meters of silk fabric across the country.
A responsible official of BSBD said, the project is developing suitable mulberry and silkworm varieties besides producing and supplying superior-quality of mulberry saplings.
Under the project, 2,130 silk farmers were trained in sericulture processing and 330 people were provided with improved training in reeling, weaving, dyeing and printing.
In addition, 700 farmers, 200 spinners and 200 silk weavers were given need-based training to improve their working efficiency in the field for the improvement of rearing of mulberry trees and silkworms.
Liakat Ali, President of Bangladesh Silk Industry Owners Association, said only giving training and awarding the trainees with certificates and materials will not make the aim of the project successful rather there should be follow-up training from time to time and a regular observation of the activities whether the persons trained on this purpose were being able to use their expertise properly. He further said that such training for silk farmers should continue to boost local yarn production and thus regain Rajshahi silk's lost glory.