People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 10 May 2007

Despite Vigorous Efforts…

SLOW PROGRESS IN COMBATING MALARIA

By Radhakrishna Rao

For more than two decades now vigorous and widespread efforts have been on to devise an effective and comprehensive vaccine to combat the emaciating disease of malaria which has become a major public health problem in India and many third world countries. It has been estimated that as many as one million people get killed every year by malaria and the continent of Africa accounts for around 90% of the deaths due to malaria.

Ecological devastation and poverty accentuated by wars have contributed in a big way to the spread of malaria in Africa. The disaster is already a big killer of children in the impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. It has also been estimated that one in three in the world is vulnerable to malarial infection.

“Sadly we say that though research is going to find remedies to combat malaria, we are unable to develop a vaccine to date. The only treatment we have is in the form of drug. We hope to develop a vaccine in the next decade”, says Dr.S.Padmanabhan, a well-known researcher from the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISC). Significantly, though a number of vaccines meant to provide protection against malaria are under various stages of development, testing and trial, none of them has been cleared for a regular and routine use.

Meanwhile, a malarial vaccine developed by the drug giant Glaxosmithkline Biologicals has shown good results during the clinical trials carried out in Mozambique. Monitoring of the children who were given three dose regime of the vaccine showed that that they were protected for 18 months. But then as pointed out by a spokesman of the company “several years of clinical investigation will be needed before this vaccine is ready for licensing”.

On the other hand, Dr.Melinda Morse, Director of Path MVI created with the objective of overcoming the barriers in the malarial vaccine development has this to say, “The ability of this vaccine to protect children from severe malaria for at least 18 months makes it a very promising, potential public check tool for the developing world”.

In an yet another development of significance, a team of French scientists at Pasteur Institute under the leadership of Prof.Pierre Drulhe has reported about  the trials of a malarial vaccine that  drugs and bednets to mimics the natural immunity some people develop against the disease. But the biggest problem associated with a malarial vaccine is that the antigen a vaccine could target may vary depending on what stage the parasite is at in its life cycle. Clearly and apparently, this implies that a single vaccine might not work against all strains all strains of the disease causing germ.

In a related development, studies carried out by the Biochemistry department of IISc have revealed that the inhibitor Geldanomycin could be used to combat malaria. According to IISc researcher Utpal Taty, the discovery is the outcome of the study on the growth malarial parasite plasmodium falciparum on patients suffering from malaria.

Incidentally, of the four malarial parasites, Plasmodium facliparum is by far the most dangerous, especially to undernourished, weak or young. In fact, the strategy to control malarial also depends on safe water, efficient public health facilities, education, supply of latest genre drugs and bednets to the people vulnerable to malarial infection. Not surprisingly, malaria is considered a disease of poverty and cause of poverty. In recent years, there has been a steady resurgence in malarial incidence in India and the States like Karnataka, Orissa and hilly north-eastern region have been reporting an increasing number of malarial cases.

On the other hand, urban centres like Mumbai and Goa too have been reporting a spurt in malarial cases mainly due to the migration of people from various parts of the country. In 1998, WHO Director General Dr.Gro Harlem Brundtland had announced a strategy to substantially reduce the cases of malaria by 2010.

Indeed, in the Indian context, the proliferation of slums and shanty towns in the urban centres of the country has contributed in a big way to the explosive spread of the disease. In fact, the conventional method of monitoring the potential breeding ground of the disease causing mosquito strains across the Indian urban sprawl has become a cumbersome exercise in terms of money and time.

As such, the New Delhi-based Malarial Research Cetnre (MRC) has been making use of the data made available by a string of earth observation and weather monitoring satellites to map the potential malariogenic areas in the country. In the long run, the repeated observation from space over a period of time can provide comparable data which will add to the malarial eradication measures.

But the grim ground reality is that in recent years, the malarial control programme in India and in other parts of the world has run into difficulties owing to the disease causing parasites fast developing resistance to the once potent anti-malarial drugs and the mosquito strains spreading the disease developing resistance to a range of hitherto potent pesticides.

According to Arata Kochi, WHO’s Head of malaria, “our biggest concern right now is to treat patients with safe and effective medication to avoid the problem of drug resistance”. Kochi also drives home the point that “if we lose ACTS (artemisinen combination therapy) we will no longer have a cure for malaria and it will probably be at least ten years before a new one can be discovered”.

The drug resistance is now a major problem in the fight against malaria, say the WHO sources. For instance, sulfa doxine pyrimthanine, which was one hundred per cent effective about two decades back, has now lost much of its efficacy and punch. As pointed out by Kochi, “so far no treatment failures due to artemisine drug resistance have been documented, but we are watching the situation very carefully”.

Meanwhile, researchers working on devising new and novel strategies to combat malaria are veering round the view that climatic fluctuations could be used to predict the spread of malaria. Researchers are confident that the system which is based on computer models of climate change can predict outbreaks upto five months in advance.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 5 May 2007

India’s Export Potential

BOOM AHEAD OF TEXTILE SECTOR

By Radhakrishna Rao

The booming south Indian textile town of Tirupur, described as the knitwear capital of India, touched a whopping Rs.11,000-crore mark through the export of textile products and knitwear during 2006-07.Of course, the elimination of the multi-fibre quota provided a strong opportunity for the  Indian textile industry in general and Tirupur’s knitwear industry in particular to boost their presence in the multi-billion dollar global textile market currently dominated by China.

Studies carried out by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) goes to show that since the abolition of the quota regime, export of textile from India has grown by 14% and garments by 33%. Because India happens to be the world’s third largest producer of cotton and the second largest producer of cotton yarn and textile, it is all set to play a significant role in the global   textile market in the years ahead.

All said and done, there is a growing realization in the Indian textile sector  that to sustain  country’s surging  textile export ,  textile companies and production units make  vigorous exports  to upgrade the technology and improve  quality standards in addition to  reducing lead time for the supply while maintaining cost competitiveness. Knitwear industry sources in Tirupur  make it clear that as is widely perceived, India does not need to be scared of China which is a clear leader in the global textile market. “They (China) have their strength but we are also ramping up our operations and can hold on our own”, says Chandra of Eastman Exports of Tirupur. He drives home the point that over the last two years, Indian exporters have crunched their turn around time quite dramatically.

As it is, not long ago, the time lag between bagging an order and executing it used to be a few months. But now it is less than six weeks. Moreover, Indian textile industry is willing to accept order for a few thousand pieces and also equipped to take small orders for custom made items. On the other hand, the minimum order size for the Chinese textile industry is 50,000. “The consolidation of knitwear firms and the process of corporatization are being varied out seriously as retailers in the European Union (EU) and USA prefer to source directly from the producers. We are consolidating our individual entities of production and operation into a single unit to achieve the much needed size essential to meet the market challenges” says a spokesman of Tirupur knitwear industry.

The setting up of Netaji Apparel Park on a stretch of 220 acres on the outskirts of Tirupur has given a much needed boost to the textile export from Tirupur. The park which houses more than 60 units is a joint venture between AEPC (Apparel Export Promotion Council) and TEA (Tirupur Exporters Association). Textile companies and knit wear units based in Tirupur, in keeping with the trend in the Indian textile industry, are moving up the value chain by either building or buying brands.

Of late, Indian exporters have started making it big in the markets such as Spain and Italy where exporters have been able to corner a large share of niche, high quality orders, coming in mainly from the fashion industry. This success is due to the fact that in the area of ethnic garments and high quality fashion textile products, India has a clear cut edge over China. Yet another plus point of the fast growing Indian textile venture is the modest success of the trendy garments, designed by the Indian fashion creators for the high end West European market. In an interesting development, the Indian handloom products known for their gorgeous colours and shades, as well as rich design and excellent finish, are slowly finding favour with a section of the high end buyers in West Europe and North America .But India’s share in the global textile market is just one-fourth of that enjoyed by China.

However, the resurgent Indian textile industry which happens to be the biggest job provider after agriculture is hopeful of notching up an export revenue of US $450-billion by 2010.India’s Commerce and Textile Ministries are also quite bullish on the long term growth prospects f textile exports. The Indian textile industry sources say that a number of small export oriented textile mills are augmenting their production facilities with a view to corner a larger share of the global textile market.

According to the Union Textiles Secretary, despite infrastructural hitches, the Indian textile sector has been witnessing growth and has the resources to outsmart China in the global market .The Government is concerned and wants improvements in infrastructure., says the Secretary.

As things stand, the Indian textile industry occupies a significant position in the Indian economy and accounts for 14% of the total industrial production in the country. India is the largest exporter producer of cotton yarn. Further, India’s spinning facility is the world’s largest with quality and cost effective production infrastructure. However, the trump card of the Indian textile industry is a strong raw materials supply base, supported by skilled labour force. The industry which is multi fibre based using cotton, jute, wool, silk and synthetic fibres, accounts for 4% of the GDP and 22% of the foreign exchange earned by India.

But the weak point of the Indian textile industry is the fragmented nature  of operations with the result that the small textile companies fail to make it big in the price sensitive market .Besides the size related pricing disadvantage, the Indian textile industry operates through  a large number of facilities, resulting in the loss of operational efficiency and cost advantage.

On another front, the skyrocketing oil prices could eat into the profitability for Indian textile mills. For major fibre intermediaries are derived from petroleum products such as Naptha.

The Indian apparel sector boasts of more than 27,000 manufacturers, 48,000 fabricators and around 1.000 manufacturers cum exporters .With a view to boost their export order, many big textile companies in India are making heavy investment in technology up-gradation and augmentation o f production facilities. ”Everybody is investing in capacity. We cannot expect to gain all of a sudden but it will be positive”, says an Indian textile industry analyst.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 5 May 2007

India’s Export Potential

BOOM AHEAD OF TEXTILE SECTOR

By Radhakrishna Rao

The booming south Indian textile town of Tirupur, described as the knitwear capital of India, touched a whopping Rs.11,000-crore mark through the export of textile products and knitwear during 2006-07.Of course, the elimination of the multi-fibre quota provided a strong opportunity for the  Indian textile industry in general and Tirupur’s knitwear industry in particular to boost their presence in the multi-billion dollar global textile market currently dominated by China.

Studies carried out by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) goes to show that since the abolition of the quota regime, export of textile from India has grown by 14% and garments by 33%. Because India happens to be the world’s third largest producer of cotton and the second largest producer of cotton yarn and textile, it is all set to play a significant role in the global   textile market in the years ahead.

All said and done, there is a growing realization in the Indian textile sector  that to sustain  country’s surging  textile export ,  textile companies and production units make  vigorous exports  to upgrade the technology and improve  quality standards in addition to  reducing lead time for the supply while maintaining cost competitiveness. Knitwear industry sources in Tirupur  make it clear that as is widely perceived, India does not need to be scared of China which is a clear leader in the global textile market. “They (China) have their strength but we are also ramping up our operations and can hold on our own”, says Chandra of Eastman Exports of Tirupur. He drives home the point that over the last two years, Indian exporters have crunched their turn around time quite dramatically.

As it is, not long ago, the time lag between bagging an order and executing it used to be a few months. But now it is less than six weeks. Moreover, Indian textile industry is willing to accept order for a few thousand pieces and also equipped to take small orders for custom made items. On the other hand, the minimum order size for the Chinese textile industry is 50,000. “The consolidation of knitwear firms and the process of corporatization are being varied out seriously as retailers in the European Union (EU) and USA prefer to source directly from the producers. We are consolidating our individual entities of production and operation into a single unit to achieve the much needed size essential to meet the market challenges” says a spokesman of Tirupur knitwear industry.

The setting up of Netaji Apparel Park on a stretch of 220 acres on the outskirts of Tirupur has given a much needed boost to the textile export from Tirupur. The park which houses more than 60 units is a joint venture between AEPC (Apparel Export Promotion Council) and TEA (Tirupur Exporters Association). Textile companies and knit wear units based in Tirupur, in keeping with the trend in the Indian textile industry, are moving up the value chain by either building or buying brands.

Of late, Indian exporters have started making it big in the markets such as Spain and Italy where exporters have been able to corner a large share of niche, high quality orders, coming in mainly from the fashion industry. This success is due to the fact that in the area of ethnic garments and high quality fashion textile products, India has a clear cut edge over China. Yet another plus point of the fast growing Indian textile venture is the modest success of the trendy garments, designed by the Indian fashion creators for the high end West European market. In an interesting development, the Indian handloom products known for their gorgeous colours and shades, as well as rich design and excellent finish, are slowly finding favour with a section of the high end buyers in West Europe and North America .But India’s share in the global textile market is just one-fourth of that enjoyed by China.

However, the resurgent Indian textile industry which happens to be the biggest job provider after agriculture is hopeful of notching up an export revenue of US $450-billion by 2010.India’s Commerce and Textile Ministries are also quite bullish on the long term growth prospects f textile exports. The Indian textile industry sources say that a number of small export oriented textile mills are augmenting their production facilities with a view to corner a larger share of the global textile market.

According to the Union Textiles Secretary, despite infrastructural hitches, the Indian textile sector has been witnessing growth and has the resources to outsmart China in the global market .The Government is concerned and wants improvements in infrastructure., says the Secretary.

As things stand, the Indian textile industry occupies a significant position in the Indian economy and accounts for 14% of the total industrial production in the country. India is the largest exporter producer of cotton yarn. Further, India’s spinning facility is the world’s largest with quality and cost effective production infrastructure. However, the trump card of the Indian textile industry is a strong raw materials supply base, supported by skilled labour force. The industry which is multi fibre based using cotton, jute, wool, silk and synthetic fibres, accounts for 4% of the GDP and 22% of the foreign exchange earned by India.

But the weak point of the Indian textile industry is the fragmented nature  of operations with the result that the small textile companies fail to make it big in the price sensitive market .Besides the size related pricing disadvantage, the Indian textile industry operates through  a large number of facilities, resulting in the loss of operational efficiency and cost advantage.

On another front, the skyrocketing oil prices could eat into the profitability for Indian textile mills. For major fibre intermediaries are derived from petroleum products such as Naptha.

The Indian apparel sector boasts of more than 27,000 manufacturers, 48,000 fabricators and around 1.000 manufacturers cum exporters .With a view to boost their export order, many big textile companies in India are making heavy investment in technology up-gradation and augmentation o f production facilities. ”Everybody is investing in capacity. We cannot expect to gain all of a sudden but it will be positive”, says an Indian textile industry analyst.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

New Delhi, 28 April 2007

India’s Tea Industry

FUNDS FLOW SHOULD GENERATE ENTHUSIASM

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

A proposal mooted by a Chinese visiting delegation last year to set up an Asian tea confederation comprising India, China and Sri Lanka has received great appreciation in all quarters. The Indian tea industry is of the view that such a confederation would facilitate smooth marketing of the tea produced in the three Asian countries in the international market, without harming each others’ trading interest. In fact, it is felt that such an alliance would greatly help to dictate prices and put a check to the monopoly of tea trade by the Western multinationals.

The Indian Tea Board has also been receptive to the idea, though it remains to be seen when the confederation actually comes into being. However, there is need for further discussions between the three parties before the details of operation are finalised. This apart, certain other developments should bring cheer to the tea industry here. The Government has recently cleared the decks for a long-standing demand of Rs 4700- crore long-term Special Purpose Tea Fund (SPTF). This is for uprooting-replanting and rejuvenation-pruning spread over 15 years to revive ageing plantations and is expected to help 1800 gardens and about 800 owners, facing problems of low productivity and old plantations.

Twenty-five per cent of the sum would be subsidy by the Centre, another 25 per cent matching contribution of the growers and the rest long-term soft loans. It is understood that loans would be payable in eight equal instalments from the sixth year of sanction, with a five-year moratorium on the payment of principal. An initial contribution of Rs 100 crore was announced in the Budget 2006.

The Finance Minister had said that this amount would be followed by levelised contribution from the Centre every year, which would obviously benefit Assam, Bengal Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Around 74 per cent or Rs 3523 crore has been allocated to Assam and Bengal, with the latter getting Rs 1333 crores and the former Rs 2190 crores. There is unanimous appreciation of the government’s commitment to the proposed fund, which would help the tea industry to raise resources from banks and financial institutions and help improve production and quality.

Meanwhile, the 400 applications have been received from North Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In this regard, the first round of signing of loan agreement between 100 tea garden owners would take place on June 25. The Eleventh Plan would focus on the SPTF to improve productivity, which suffers as 38 per cent of the area under plantation has bushes more than 50 years old.  After a five-year cycle of rejuvenation, the productivity should go up between 30 and 50 per cent, according to Jairam Ramesh, the minister of state for commerce and industry.  

Orthodox Production

There would also be a perceptible change in production strategy as the government has decided to increase orthodox tea production from the current 80 million tons to 120 million tons in the next five years to capture the growing tea market in this area. Incidentally, Ramesh indicated at a seminar recently that the Russian market, which has been a prime export destination for Indian tea, has shown its inclination towards consuming more orthodox tea instead of CTC.

The Tea Board had estimated that about 500 million kg could additionally be produced if one were to bring the yield of each of the gardens at par with the highest yield of the respective district. It would be necessary for the managers of the low-yielding gardens to visualize their operational responsibilities in terms of individual factors of production such as land management, soil management, nutrition management and water management and not merely in the traditional terms of estate management.

For increasing production of such uneconomic tea areas, rejuvenation and infilling offer the best medium-term remedies. Infilling can double the output per hectare and, considering an average vacancy of 20 per cent in 421,000 hectares in the country with double infill, the new bush population after eight years or so could be 40:80 i.e. 1:2. While expansion of area may be another option for production growth, availability of land has become a big problem. In fact, whatever expansion that has taken place in recent times has mainly been in the North Eastern parts of the country.

A favourable development last year for our tea industry was the widespread drought reported from Kenya. While India has for some years faced tough competition from Sri Lanka and Kenya because of their competitive prices, now is the turn for us to reduce our costs of production by increasing yield per hectare and make our presence felt in the international market. It may be mentioned here that the cost of tea production in India is the highest in the world and stands at $ 1.7 per hectare while it is as low as 0.58 in Indonesia. Though Indian tea is synonymous with quality tea, even then the costs have to be reduced to a certain extent to compete favourably in the international market.

Increasing Costs

 But the question arises whether all these developments will be able to effectively tackle the crisis in the tea industry where increasing costs of production and the inability to boost up exports have been major impediments. Labour costs have gone up by Rs17 per man-day since 1998 without any productivity norm being enforced. Other costs traveling northwards since 1998 are electricity by around 170 per cent (till 2003), petroleum products and other chemicals and fertilizers by over 60 per cent, which along with labour wage increase, have pushed up garden costs by around 70 to 75 per cent. Industry estimates reveal that the average man-day in a conventional tea garden produces only 1.2 kilograms of tea, among the lowest in the world that puts India at a competitive disadvantage against other tea producing nations.

The all India auction average came down from Rs 76.43 to Rs 55.43 between 1998 and 2002 with export price realization down by Rs 25 per kilogram. However the number of estates went up from 88,000 tea gardens producing 870 million kgs in 1998 to 115,250 tea gardens claiming to have produced 820-830 million kgs between 2002 and 2004. The drop of yield per hectare from 1995 kgs. to around 1580 kgs is indicative of the reduced demand as also of the state of the small growers whose production does not figure in the official list.

The total yield as per current productivity norms should be around 1000 million kgs. But in reality it is much less. The official figures do not reflect the output from the bought tea leaves or the tea waste being recycled with good teas to help flood the domestic market with strong teas. The government loses revenue and the industry does not have any authentic basis for its calculations as something around 150 million kgs are missing from official figures.

That production costs have to be brought down by resorting to mechanization cannot be doubted. Incidentally at $ 1.62 per kg, the Indian cost of tea production is highest among its other competitors. According to a study by the Indian Tea Board, the cost of production of tea in Sri Lanka is at $1.23, Kenya at $1.16, Vietnam at $0.96, Malaysia at $0.84 while Indonesia is the cheapest at $0.58.

An inter-ministerial group of the previous NDA government, comprising the finance, commerce and labour ministries had decided that the Centre would bear 40 per cent of the social cost and the state government would chip in 10 per cent though nothing has been done as yet. The social cost in north India was estimated at Rs 459.97 crores which is about Rs 7.17 per kg of made tea while in south India it was Rs 132 crores which is Rs 3.06 per kg of made tea. The group had also rightly suggested that the tea producing states review the high agricultural income tax imposed on the industry and rationalize the enactments keeping in view the financial health of the plantation sector. But not much headway has yet been made in this direction.

According to the group, it also asked the state governments to review the Plantation Labour Act and link wages with productivity. There is need to seriously think in this direction as these may help bring down costs to a considerable extent.

The other area of attention would obviously be an export thrust. The Tea Board and the Centre would also have a crucial role to play in undertaking promotional campaigns to boost up exports. In the search for new and emerging markets, aggressive promotional strategy would be needed. If necessary, big companies like Tata Tea, Hindustan Lever and the like may be roped in and a viable plan of action formulated to promote Indian tea in some specific markets of the Middle East and also Pakistan.

A point that cannot be denied is that the Tea Board has initially failed in promoting Indian tea in the unexplored markets and highlighting the beneficial aspects of drinking quality tea. A sustained campaign against cheap teas of Kenya and Sri Lanka may have to be launched along with the awareness of the medicinal values of tea on human health. It is only in recent years that the Tea Research Association (TRA) has undertaken research on the beneficial aspects of drinking quality tea and this has to be popularized in India and abroad.

Even in an otherwise dull scenario there is no reason to believe that exports cannot be substantially increased though, of course, the demands of the specific markets have to be kept into consideration. A modest export of around 180 million kgs should not be difficult to achieve if the industry and the Tea Board put in sincere efforts jointly. Meanwhile with Pakistan reducing duty and sales tax on imported tea, India can now hope to export around 20-25 million kgs to its neighbour (against around 15 million kgs in 2006).

Among other measures being contemplated by the Government is bringing more transparency in tea marketing in the country so as to enable radical improvements in the system and attract producers to trade through these centres. The Tea board is also going to set up auction centers at Jorhat and Dibrugarh in Upper Assam and these centres could act as satellite units of Guwahati Tea Auction Centre.

 Future Strategy

Competitiveness and reducing costs of production have to be important aspects of the future strategy. High-yielding varieties of seeds, which are being developed by the TRA and the UPASI Tea Institute, have to be put to use for which loans and grants have to be made available, specially for small growers. Modernization of the factory and giving more emphasis to orthodox production, keeping an eye on exports would be needed as early as possible. Moreover because of high costs of labour, mechanization in farm operations and also in the factory may help in bringing down costs. Another aspect, which has to be kept in mind, is the reduction in the use of chemicals and pesticides as the Western countries have been showing their preference for buying organic tea.

The coming decades is undoubtedly a big challenge for the Indian tea industry as determined efforts have to be made to boost up productivity through biological innovations, on the one hand, and break the monopoly of the MNCs in the realm of exports, on the other. The Rs 6000 crores industry with dollar earnings of around Rs 1800 crores spread over several states in the North-East and South and directly employing 1.1 million people in the country’s remotest regions (and indirectly another nine million) will have to be revived at any cost. Apart from the economic aspect for the industry’s growth and development in a sector where India was once a world leader, the social dimension is no less important.

Keeping such a labour-intensive industry vibrant is imperative at this juncture when unemployment and underemployment is a big problem and extremist activities are rampant in Assam and the North-East. With employment generation being a thrust of the present government’s development strategy and the SPTF expected to generate employment of 22 million person days, an industry like tea that is labour-intensive has rightly been accorded priority and all efforts have to be geared now for its revival and growth. Thus it is necessary that the present Fund would accelerate the process of evolving a realistic time-bound plan of action with the industry leaders taking the lead, keeping in view the interests of the big growers as also of their smaller counterparts, who are possibly the worst hit and struggling for survival.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)