GENERAL ECONOMIC SURVEY

INDUSTRIES

According to 1951 census, 79,176 persons (of whom 7,792 were women) were engaged in various industries. Historically speaking industries began to develop in the old Kolhapur State round about 1925. Cotton textile, sugar, gur, manufacture of small mechanical devices and production of vegetable oil are the important among them. Among village industries, handloom-weaving, brick-making, tile-making and pottery, leather-working and tanning are important.

Due to increase in irrigation facilities and supply of electricity, there seems to be sufficient justification for the belief that the sugar industry would become the most important industry in the district in days to come. Another important prospective industry is the manufacture of aluminium, when electricity from the Koyna Hydel Project, becomes available. The first sugar factory began to operate in 1932. It produced 14,281 tons of sugar in 1956-57 and employed, in 1957, 365 persons on a permanent basis and 403 on a seasonal basis.

Co-operative management of industries is a new feature of industrial management and has been adopted in the manufacture of sugar and in various village industries such as brick and tile-making, leather goods industry and tanning industry. In sugar industry arrangements for four co-operative sugar factories have reached the final stage (1956-57) and may start work in the near future.

In addition to the cotton textile mills at Kolhapur, there are at present (1957-58) about 150 power-loom factories with about 1,590 power-looms; they employ about 2,572 persons. It was in 1928 that the first power-loom factory was started.

There were, in 1953-54, ten oil mills in the district. They employed 300 persons in all. The first mill was started in 1912; the next three during the thirties and the remaining six during the forties.

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