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GENERAL ECONOMIC SURVEY |
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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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