The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Bringing light into their lives

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 26, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Bringing light into their lives

Vidyashree Amaresh

GOOD TIMES AHEAD: A sericulturist with his cocoons.

BANGALORE: For Manjunath Reddy, a sericulturist of Kolar, the gentle nod of the silk worms ready to get to the pupa stage means good business now because of the solar energy systems. An average of nine hours power cut daily at his silk rearing house had made sorting 28-day-old mature silk worms almost impossible. The small worms, which breed on mulberry leaves at the rearing house had to be picked out and placed in the "Chandrahanki" (the tray which the worm weaves silk to form the cocoon) at a temperature of 24 degrees (sunlight).

The fuel for the petromax lights drained his wallet and the use of candles was troublesome as the wax dropped on the worms while sorting them. With no proper lighting facilities, he often missed out on mature worms and had to perforce leave the cocoon form itself on mulberry leaves thereby incurring a loss of Rs. 3,500 a month.

Three days, the 26th, the 27th and the 28th, in cocoon rearing are crucial as the worms usually are ready by then to weave silk fibre. About 44,000 worms are bred at a stretch and the ones ready to get to the pupa stage (the indicators being, not consuming mulberry leaves, change of colour and swaying head upwards) are gathered and essentially put on the tray so that the cocoon formed is colourless.

"Only the colourless cocoons fetch money in the market. The absence of light all these years had put us into a lot of hardship. Now after the installation of solar energy units, sorting out the good worms from the bad ones has become easy and the loss of cocoon has come down by 10 kg," said Manjunath.

"The solar lighting systems have cut down on the electricity bills which almost came to Rs. 500 in a single rearing house. With three such houses, the expense was as high as Rs. 1,500 per month. And also, the erratic power supply has been troublesome. Hence, we had to use generators whose operational cost ran up to Rs. 3,600 per month."

Now with solar panels, the sericulturists of Kolar district are saving up to Rs. 8,600 per month. Their electricity expenses are almost nil.

Banks have come up with loan schemes to help sericulturists with their one-time investment in installing the solar systems. According to S. Raghavendra, manager of Canara Bank, Kolar, banks helped the solar system installers get a list of those in need of the systems under the United Nations Environment Scheme.

"Last year, the acute drought in the area saw the need of 20 units of solar systems in and around the area. Finance has been given for 10 units this year and more are in the pipeline. Solar systems have visibly increased productivity by 20 per cent and the repayment of the loan has been fairly satisfactory," said Mr. Raghavendra.

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