Being low capital intensive agro-based sector, sericulture generates a continuous stream of income within
rural India throughout the year. It ensures secured livelihood to more than 7.5 million persons in and across 59
thousand villages over India, including its allied activities [1]. In the face of rising poverty and inequality with the
advent of globalization, sericulture has become one of the promising and ideal rural income generating sectors due
to its minimum gestation period and maximum employment generating potential with quick turnover. It
unambiguously ensures a dependable livelihood to a large section of low-skilled poor peasants and artisans. The
objective of this paper is to derive the determinants of income generation in the rural sericulture silk sector of West
Bengal.
In [2] showed that West Bengal being one of the principal originators of silk-industry in country has
successfully raised its raw silk production during 1980-2004 with a positive annual growth rate of 4.16 percent and
the annual growth in mulberry area during the same period has been 1.83 percent, which implied a growth in land
productivity with the passage of time. This higher growth in level of raw silk production compared to that of mulberry
cultivated area is also indicative of a vertical growth of sericulture in West Bengal instead of horizontal extension.
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