MYSORE: The Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation Limited (KSIC) is targeting a new range of customers from the middle and lower middle class as it plans to price its extremely popular Mysore silk sarees at Rs 3,000 within six months.
The KSIC marketing department will give the facility of paying on instalments to government employees, including teachers and ones working in banks on purchasing these sarees. It plans to extend this facility to women's societies and self-help groups to ensure all women an opportunity to buy a Mysore silk saree from the silk manufacturing unit started by the erstwhile Maharaja in 1912. The Mysore unit has imported reeling machines from Japan and South Korea, and solar heaters for dyeing. It has produced 72,000 sarees that include about 4.20 lakh metres of fabrics comprising crepe-de-chine, geogete, tissues with varieties of gold lace borders ranging from checks, buttas, wedding sarees and rich pallu, embroidery and kasuthi.
KSIC chairman Subash Bharani said they will work out the modalities and consider seeking the government's support to produce the Rs 3000 sarees. He told the KSIC which made Rs 7-crore profit in the previous year set a target of Rs 68 crore. Clarifying the recession has not hit the silk industry, he said the Mysore factory did a business of Rs 5 lakh a day.
He said they have plans to come out with attractive prices to improve its business, with new varieties of KSIC sarees with 100 per cent pure silk and pure zari. It is also using 26/28 denier (unit of measurement for fineness of silk) Raw Silk Yarn in most of its fabrics to get the required standard weight, drape and a pronounced grainy effect.
Govt not to relieve engineers
The KSIC chairman Subash Bharani said the government would not relieve 1,400 SC/ST engineers appointed in the backlog.
Bharani said he held talks with PWD Minister Udasi and had taken up the issue with the CM. He said: “The government is in touch with the Law Department and claims that a review petition will be filed in a couple of days.” He said the government would take a favourable stand on the engineers.