Development of jute products and value addition for improvement in livelihood of rural craftsmen.

摘要

Jute is one of the most affordable natural fibers and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses of vegetable fibers. Jute, the "Golden fiber" of India, has various inherent characteristics like high tensile strength, low extensibility, long durability and silkiness. Jute has been in use mainly for packaging materials since time immemorial. Sometimes bags, mats, handicrafts items and home textiles are made from jute fabrics which are in natural color i.e. light brown, brown or grey. New looks and structures are constantly in demand. Thus the products may be upgraded by developing superior colors, new designs and new design techniques. The present study has been undertaken for value addition of traditional jute products by combination of printing and embroidery techniques. After preliminary survey, five jute products such as cushion cover, shopping bag, pen holder and table runner were designed. Out of these only two products were prepared with combination of two techniques viz. tie and dye and kasuti embroidery. Developed jute products were adjudged by 30 judges visually for suitability of combination techniques, color combination and overall appearance on three point scale. The results of the study showed that 100% respondents accepted that these two techniques were most suitable for jute fabric. Most of the respondents (69-80%) liked both types of tie and dye method. Border placement of motif was scored highest than center. Cushion covers were highly accepted by respondents than shopping bags. Developed jute products show good market potential because most of the respondents were ready to pay the estimated price to buy these products.