Bhagalpur Tusser Silk Industry

The silk industry in Bhagalpur city is 200 of years old and a whole clan exist that has been producing silk for generations. Bhagalpur is well known for its sericulture, manufacture of silk yarn and weaving them into lovely products. This silk is of a distinct and special type. It is known as Tussah or Tusser Silk. Silk weaving is an age-old traditional household industry of Bhagalpur. There is a Silk Institute and Agricultural college here as well as a University and Engineering, Medical and Homoeopathy colleges. In Bhagalpur the weavers service centre (GOI) was established in the year 1974. With a view to developing handloom silk industry in the state of Bihar. The Silk sarees produced in Bhagalpur are more popular in the domestic market. The Bhagalpur cluster is the second highest in silk fabric production and exports after the Karnataka state. Bhagalpur silk home furnishing made ups are slowly becoming popular in the Overseas markets.
Noted Bihar-origin designer Samant Chauhan wants to see the silk-town of Bhagalpur in Bihar on the world fashion map.Thirty-year old Samant was born and brought up in a middle class family in the railway workshop township of Jamalpur in Munger district, about 150 km from Patna. He graduated in Physics from Bhagalpur before making a career out of his passion.
Woven craft is an uphill task at a time when fashion stores order sherwanis and dresses in all other colours except natural.
He has a plan to start a factory that produces, what he called, non-violent silk. According to him 1,500 silk worms are killed to get one metre of woven silk.
Chauhan showed at London, Singapore and at Ethical Fashion 2008 in Paris. But he has won more awards than retail orders. His clothes have buyers in Europe, the US and Australia, as his garments created from raw silk are suited to colder climate. But that is not the case in India.