said that 70% of the production of wool and woolen products do take place in Punjab and Haryana creating jobs for 27 lakh people directly in the industry.  He felt with the initiative of Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), if wool bank were set up, job opportunities for about one lakh people in the region can be created.

All together over 34 shops were opened at the Woolen Expo at the youth hostel with participants from different parts of the region. It showcased various woolen products manufactured in the region.

According to a source in the ICC, manufacturing  of fine woolen textile products in India has been forte of artisan skills of handloom weavers’ right from Kashmir in the North to various manufacturing centers in Rajasthan, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh for centuries. Various kinds of animal hair obtained from hilly terrain were processed and used to make fine products like shawls, carpets, rugs etc.

Indian wool Industry was a predominantly unorganized and scattered industry until the economic liberalization of Indian economy in the 1990s. After the opening up of the economy, the Indian wool industry witnessed a stupendous growth.

The Indian wool industry is an important industry since it is one of the prominent sources of livelihood for the rural India and it represents small, medium, and large scale units. The Indian wool Industry is smaller in size in comparison to other textile industries in India. The main wool producing states of India are Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Haryana. Punjab alone accounts for 40% woolen units, while Haryana accounts for 27%, Rajasthan for 10%, and the rest of the states account for the remaining 23%. The bulk of the wool that is produced in India is of coarse quality and used mainly in  manufacturing of hand-knitted carpets. The rest is used for  manufacturing  of apparel, blankets, finished textiles, garments, knitwear, etc. Further, the India wool Industry also caters to civil and defense requirements for warm clothing for the Indian Army. The Indian Wool Industry is the 7th largest in the world and it accounts for about 1.8% of total world production of wool.

Strength of Indian wool Industry:

• Huge woolen textile production capacity
• Efficient multi-fiber raw material manufacturing capacity
• Large pool of skilled and cheap work force
• Entrepreneurial skills
• Huge export potential
• Large domestic market
• Very low import content

Despite the unrestricted scope and opportunities of wool sector in the international market, the isolated and unorganized nature of wool industry has been facing constraints on its sustenance such as traditional manufacturing methodology, increased global competition in the post 2005 trade regime under WTO, imports of cheap textiles,  lack of modernization, poor supply chain management, high production cost,  low quality output, non-availability of adequate and timely credit facilities; lack of skill up gradation of weavers in designing, dyeing, printing and processing; and inadequate organisational, marketing and technical support.

It is expected that the domestic and international market for woolen products will expand and per capita consumption will also increase. While changes in the international trading regime have created new opportunities, they also pose new threats to woolen products. Thus strength and opportunities of wool sector must be evaluated in terms of open trading regime which is now emerging. At the same time there arises a strong need to work hard in this sector to exploit the opportunities for renewed growth that have been created in developed market economies.

Market promotion of woolen products in North East:

Considering the significance of this industry, marketing of woolen products can be done in North East, through organizing various expos in various states of the North eastern region from the following point of view

• North eastern region as such does not produce wool, but the demand of woolen products is huge because the terrain in the region is mainly of hilly where the duration of winter season is longer than that plain areas states of India. For example, in the states like Meghalaya, Nagaland (Kohima mainly), Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim, winter lasts longer.
• Northeast India is the gateway to Southeast Asia and as such the region occupies an important role in translating the Look East Policy of the Indian Government into reality. India’s Look East Policy ‘envisages the Northeast region not as the periphery of India, but as the centre of a thriving and integrated economic space linking two dynamic regions with a network of highways, railways, pipelines, transmission lines crisscrossing the region. This leads a vast scope of marketing woolen products in the North eastern region.
• As mentioned earlier wool is not produced in the North East, but there is great demand of raw wool among weavers in the region. This is because the traditional handloom weaving is practiced as a household industry in the North East, where apart from using mulberry and other non-mulberry fiber, wool is also used. The wool expos can play a major role in preventing the middle-man’s role in purchase of wool fiber.

The Indian Chamber of Commerce proposes to organize one woolen expo in Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh from 20th February to 29th February, 2012 with the following objectives:

• To showcase and promote the various woolen products in the markets of North East India
• To encourage the weavers of this sector in marketing their product.
• To conduct the publicity campaign to promote utilisation of wool.
• To prevent the middleman intervention in this business.
• To encourage entrepreneurship in wool sector and thereby helping the economic development of the region.