Thoubal District
___________________________________________________________________________________

Industry                                                                                                          

      Industrially the district is backward. The Khansari Sugar Factory at Wangbal is the only medium sized industry set up in the district in 1973 with an installed capacity of 60 tones of sugar per day. Although the factory was initially intended to provide employment to about 200 persons, its actual production during the years since it has been commissioned was so much behind the targeted production that it is now running at huge loss.
    

     The most important industry from the point of view of employment potential and volume of out put is the handloom and handicraft industry basis. Bed sheets, Chadars, Phaneks, mosquito nets,  bamboo baskets, mats and other caneworks, fishing nets, furniture, carpentry products, pottery articles, etc. are some of the notable products of this industry, Handloom industry is spread throughout the width and breadth of the district. To help the industry there is a proposal to set up Raw Material Bank  to supply quality yarn to the weavers. Waikhong, Nongpok Sekmai, Thongjao and Chairel are important places where pottery articles are manufactured. Heirok and Khangabok are noted for bamboo baskets and harvesting mats ( Yeina Phak in local language) made from Arundo donax, a variety of reed. Other industries are manufacture of salt from brine springs, manufacture of bricks, rice milling, repair of motor vehicles, manufacture of edible oils, production of cocoons and raw silk, etc. Salt is manufactured at Waikhong, Sikhong, Ningel and Chandrakhong; bricks at Kakching, Wangjing, Charangpat, Heirok and Khongjom; 'Soibum', a product made from bamboo shoots is manufactured at Kakching. There are altogether 147 factories registered in the district under the Indian Factories Act upto March, 1987.
    

     In Order to uplift the industrial backwardness  of the district the Government has taken in recent years a number of steps by way of providing grants, subsidies, hire purchase schemes, seed money work sheds and training facilities to the promising industrial units.