‘Silkworms not to be killed for deities’ attire’

Bhubaneswar: Silkworms will no longer be killed to produce silk woven attire for the deities of Jagannath Temple in Puri. The state handlooms, textiles and handicrafts department has decided to procure the attire for the Puri temple deities without killing the insects.
The directorate of textiles has attempted a unique process in which silkworms will not be killed to make silk fabric. “On an experimental basis, some silk woven attire have been made by keeping the silkworms alive. This is an appreciable move. Our objective is not to kill any insect to make a product that would be used by the deities,” chief secretary and working chairperson of the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration, Pradeep Kumar Jena, told the media in Puri after holding a meeting on the preparations for the forthcoming Rath Yatra.
While silk fibres are normally procured from other states, the textile department for the first time engaged 700 farmers to cultivate silkworms in some districts.
“We did not kill the silkworms. We scared away the insects and got around 12 quintals of dry cocoons. Later, the cocoons were sent to a spilling mill at Raipur in Chhattisgarh from where we received the silk threads. In this process, we managed to save the lives of thousands of silkworms,” said director of textiles Sovan Krishna Sahu.
Gopinath Das, who weaved the silk sarees with Geeta Govinda written on them, said no less than 8,000 silkworms are killed for making one silk saree.