author(s)
Hiware Chandrashekhar Jalba

abstract
Sericulture is one of the oldest industries in India and Asia. Sericulture is an agro-cottage, forest based industry, labor intensive and commercially attractive economic activity falling under the cottage and small-scale sector. The silk is the final product of this industry. It particularly suits to rural population working with agriculture, entrepreneurs and artisans as it requires low investment with potential for relatively higher returns. It provides income and employment to the rural poor especially, farmers with small land-holding and marginalized and weaker sections of the society. rnMaharashtra is a nontraditional sericulture state producing Mulberry and Tasar silk. The specialty of the state is that, it undertakes 98% of bivoltine sericulture and stood first among nontraditional states and one of the potential States in India for silk production. The bivoltine sericulture development has been one of the priority sectors of Indian silk industry but its production is yet to meet the targets. Women play a dominant role in this sector, as the activities are mostly home-based. Women have been contributing to all the sectors of Sericulture starting from on-farm activities to fabric production, marketing and consumption. The involvement of women in different activities of Sericulture is well above 53 per cent Gangopadhyay, 2008 ^[1].