The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Not just any silk, it’s pure silk

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 10, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Not just any silk, it’s pure silk

Special Correspondent

Silk Mark label has been introduced by the Silk Mark Organisation of India

Audited figures of SMOI show that total sale of labels stood at eight lakh in 2005-06
It rose to over 15 lakh the next year after the introduction of the silk label

Bangalore: People are no longer content with buying just silk, but want to make sure what they buy is unadulterated silk.

The fact that the Silk Mark label, introduced by the Silk Mark Organisation of India (SMOI) in 2004 as assurance of 100 per cent purity, notched up sales by nearly double from 2005-06 to 2006-07 is one indication of that.

Audited figures of SMOI show that while the total sale of labels stood at eight lakh in 2005-06, it rose to over 15 lakh the next year.

Over 10 lakh labels have already been sold till early November this financial year. K.S. Gopal, Silk Mark Executive at SMOI, says that the total sale of labels since its introduction is inching towards the 40 lakh mark. He admits that Silk Mark is yet to have the recall value of an older quality assurance label such as Wool Mark, but he believes that it is improving and the total annual sale of labels may reach at least the 25 lakh mark by 2009-10.

Though SMOI has been doing awareness camps for dealers and consumers, a question asked by customers often is how they can be sure that what they buy with the Silk Mark hologram label is indeed pure.

“We do have a mechanism to do random checking for products sold by dealers,” says Mr. Gopal. “We are also thinking of introducing third party surveillance mechanism to ensure greater credibility.” This was done as a pilot project last year, and it may become an annual feature.

Silk Mark Expo

SMOI has about 800 authorised dealers of Silk Mark across India, of which 150 are in Bangalore alone. Because of their increasing numbers, SMOI has decided to host Silk Mark Expo, an event to exclusively showcase the products of authorised manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and co-operative societies.

The event is scheduled to be held between March 6 and 10 at Bangalore.

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