VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

Yesterday, on the way back from Lepakshi, in the outskirts of Hindupur in Anantapur District,  Jayshree Hatangadi  and I chanced upon some silk farms. There were large sheds with beds of wooden trays in which the worms were reared for around 3 weeks and fed mulberry leaves. After which they were transferred to another shed where they were harvested. Later they were shifted to the the auction house and sold. The rates for yellow less dense cocoons is between Rs.350 to Rs. 400  per kg. The denser white cocoon is sold between Rs. 500 and Rs. 600 per kg. Then they went through further processing. We were surprised to learn that a single cocoon could yield around one kilometer of filament! They are spun into yarns, dyed in brilliant colours and sold in reels to weaving factories where they produce the gorgeous silk sarees. One weaving unit can produce three sarees a day and the more complicated Jacquard ones take a whole day to produce. The w...

This marketing effort would be termed "excellent" if it was done by the coffee board. But for tourism it is totally irrelevant and a waste of money. That is because Araku is already bursting at the seams with low to medium spending tourists. The roads are crowded, chaotic and  filthy. Mountains of organic and plastic  garbage are strewn everywhere. Lines of squatting children do their job on the road sides. So much for ODF! There are no public toilets and what little is available is sub Saharan standards. In the roads surrounding Araku we come across heaps of Plaster of Paris and plastic sheeting removed from some old film set. Thermocole packing material and styrofoam plates lie in the fields everywhere. In the absence of any organised solid waste management every hotel and lodge takes their garbage across the road and chucks it into the bushes. Other than the APTDC property all lodges have poor standards. The RTC bus stand is one of the worst anywhere with ha...