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A PIB Backgrounder sets out the state of India's jute sector: 76 lakh bales of raw jute and 12.80 lakh MT of jute goods in FY 2025-26, with India the world's largest raw jute producer and maker of about 75% of global jute goods.
Raw jute MSP for FY 2026-27 is ₹5,925 per quintal, giving a 61.8% return over the all-India weighted average cost of production and about 147% above the FY 2014-15 level of ₹2,400.
The policy stack runs through the National Jute Development Programme (₹485.58 crore, FY 2021-22 to FY 2025-26), its JUTE-ICARE and Jute Diversification components, and the compulsory jute packaging law.
Digital interventions include JUTE-SMART for sacking procurement and an ISRO-built Jute Crop Information System with the BHUVAN JUMP app and the PATSAN platform.
Umbrella scheme for developing and promoting the jute sector, implemented by the National Jute Board
Key: Outlay ₹485.58 crore for FY 2021-22 to FY 2025-26; two components — JUTE-ICARE and the Jute Diversification Scheme
Raise jute productivity and fibre quality through scientific cultivation, mechanisation and better retting
Key: Launched FY 2015-16; subsidised certified seeds and field demonstrations for small and marginal farmers; run with CRIJAF and JCI; retting ponds built through convergence with PMKSY and RKVY
Support processing, marketing and sale of jute diversified products (JDPs)
Key: 30% capital subsidy on plant and machinery; Jute Resource-cum-Production Centres for artisans and women SHGs; Jute Retail Outlets with 25% sales assistance up to ₹9 lakh per unit; a production-linked incentive for JDP exports
Supply raw jute to the unorganised sector and small units at mill-gate price plus actual transport cost
Key: Serves artisans, women SHGs and MSMEs making jute diversified products
Rebuild raw jute supply after Partition left about 80% of the growing area in East Pakistan while most mills stayed in India
Key: Launched September 1949; farmers encouraged to shift from paddy to jute
End-to-end e-governance portal for procurement and supply of jute sacking bags for food grains
Key: Implemented by the Office of the Jute Commissioner in November 2016; upgraded in 2026 to onboard transporters, raw jute traders and importers with fully digital registration and returns
Monitor jute cultivation using remote sensing and field data
Key: Developed by ISRO through the National Remote Sensing Centre with JCI and NJB; tools are the BHUVAN JUMP mobile app and PATSAN, a web platform for near-real-time jute surveillance
Certify quality and verified jute content in jute and jute-blended products
Key: Brand mark for authenticity and standardisation across the value chain
Nodal agency for development, promotion and diversification across the jute value chain; constituted under the National Jute Board Act, 2008 and operational from 1 April 2010, subsuming the Jute Manufactures Development Council and the National Centre for Jute Diversification
Sole nodal agency for MSP operations in raw jute; buys directly from growers through Departmental Purchase Centres when market prices fall below MSP; about 110 DPCs in West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tripura
Research on jute and allied fibres — jute, mesta, sisal, ramie, sunnhemp and flax; technical partner for JUTE-ICARE
Recommends minimum support prices for 23 crops; raw jute is one of its four commercial crops alongside copra, sugarcane and cotton
Manages procurement and supply of jute sacking bags for food grains and operates the JUTE-SMART portal
Specifies the commodities that must be packed in jute material and the extent of the reservation; the government currently mandates jute bags for 100% of food grains and 20% of sugar, guaranteeing jute farmers a captive market
Constitutes the National Jute Board and requires it to secure better working conditions, amenities and incentives for jute industry workers; the NJB scholarship for girl children of jute mill and JDP-MSME workers who clear Secondary and Higher Secondary exams flows from this mandate
A technical textile woven from treated jute fibre and used in civil engineering — slope protection on embankments, hill cuts, riverbanks and canals, road and rail formation, and concealed drainage. It is fully biodegradable, so as it decays it improves soil structure and fertility while holding the surface long enough for vegetation to establish.
Simple Analogy: A temporary net that holds a slope still until roots take over the job.
Earliest traces of jute use in India; it becomes a major commercial commodity only in the colonial period, when the East India Company sets up mills in Bengal
Partition leaves about 80% of the jute-growing area in East Pakistan while most mills remain in India, creating an acute raw material shortage
Grow More Jute campaign launched; raw jute output more than doubles by 1961-62
Jute Corporation of India incorporated as the price support agency for raw jute
Jute Packaging Materials Act enacted, mandating jute sacks for essential commodities
National Jute Board becomes operational under the 2008 Act
JUTE-SMART portal launched by the Office of the Jute Commissioner
GS Paper 3 > Economy > Agriculture, Cropping Patterns and Minimum Support Price
General Awareness > Indian Economy and Static GK
General Awareness > Indian Agriculture
Controlled soaking of harvested jute stems so microbial action loosens the bast fibre from the woody core; poor retting is the main cause of low fibre quality, which is why JUTE-ICARE funds retting ponds.
A bast fibre crop grown as a cheaper substitute for jute in drier agro-climatic zones; classified with jute as raw jute for trade purposes.
Value-added jute goods beyond sacking — bags, handloom fabric, geotextiles, apparel blends — the focus of the Jute Diversification Scheme.
The standard jute sacking bag used for food grain procurement; traded in bales of 500 bags through JUTE-SMART.