Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said that the government’s aim is to bring the coir industry back to its glory, and that its efforts are getting good response from workers and the co-operative sector.
The Minister was speaking after inaugurating the spinning machines allotted by the government to the Azhikode Coir Industry Co-operative Society under the Kannur Coir Project, through videoconferencing on Sunday.
The government has sanctioned 10 spinning machines.
The objective is to install 1,000 automatic spinning machines in 100 coir groups as part of the second coir reorganisation being implemented by the Coir Development Department. The project is expected to be completed by November, Mr. Isaac said.
The machines were manufactured by the Kerala State Coir Machinery Manufacturing Company, a public sector undertaking.
“When the government came to power, the annual coir production in the State was 7,000 tonnes. Today, it stands at 20,000 tons. The government has intensified efforts to install algorithmic state machines in co-operatives with better capacity to meet the annual production target of 40,000 tonnes,” the Minister said.
Azhikode grama panchayat president C. Prasanna presided over the function. Block panchayat president Kuduvan Padmanabhan switched on the machines.