NEW DELHI, May 19: As was expected, the government has partially given in to political pressure from the Left parties (and the West Bengal jute lobby) and looks all set to cave in completely on the issue of the controversial Jute Packaging Materials Act (JPMA).At a meeting on Sunday, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs decided to continue with the existing norms for compulsory packing of food, sugar and fertilisers in jute bags for another two years. Faced with great opposition, it deferred a decision on cement and has decided to consult all parties involved before taking a decision. As if it hadn't heard the views of parties involved till now. The decision to carry on with the JPMA in the food, sugar and fertiliser sector implies that the concerned industries will have to bear a cost of around Rs 300 crore this year. This is based on calculations made by the Tata Economic Consultancy Services (TECS) earlier this year.According to the TECS, if the current norms that half of cement must be packed in jute bags are to be followed, this would mean that the cement industry would have to bear a burden of close to Rs 1,100 crore this year. These calculations of losses are based on the losses due to seepage of products which are packed in jute bags as well as higher costs of jute bags to the HDPE ones.Why is the government so keen to protect the jute industry that it doesn't mind if other industries have to fork out an additional Rs 1,400 crore? In fact, according to the TCS study, if the current JPMA is extended, the cost to industry will shoot up to Rs 1,800 crore by the year 2001-02.Well, the raison d'etre for carrying on with the JPMA, is that 4 million farmer families are dependent on jute cultivation. Actually, as the TECS study shows, this is a complete travesty of the truth. According to TECS, only 1.25 million farmer families are dependent on jute cultivation. The survey also showed that for most of these farmers, jute cultivation was not the mainstay - a substantial part of their income came from non-farm activities.
