Economy of Jalna district is primarily based on agriculture and agro-industries. Out of the total geographical area of 761200 hectares, 6, 51,553 hectare of land is under agricultural use. This accounts for nearly 85 percent of the total geographical area of the district. Under agricultural production, the bulk of production is of kharif crops whereas the rest is under rabi crop production. The major crops grown here are jowar, wheat and cotton. The area under double crops is just 15 percent while area under irrigation is only 7.8 percent which is far below the state average. The current irrigation potential in the district is 66,097 hectares, while the area under well irrigation is about 35,000 hectares. The development plan has envisaged irrigation potentials of up to 1, 18,000 hectares.
Jalna district has a moderate industrial background, as the state of industrial development is not too high here. Among the existent industries here, the district is especially famous for the seed and steel industries. The industrial development in Jalna is mostly based on Engineering, Plastic and Agriculture. Pulse mills, oil mills, refineries, steel re-rolling, plastic, tiles and cement pipe, fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and the co-operative sugar factories are also playing an important part in the industrial development of Jalna. There are also cotton ginning and pressing factories and an agricultural market produce committee handling large quantities of all kinds of agricultural produce, including cotton.
In view of the overall industrial backwardness of the region, the state government has initiated a master plan to encourage the establishment of small and large - scale industrial units. Under this plan the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) has set up an industrial area in Jalna consisting of large-scale, medium scale and small scale industries. Jalna industrial area has a large number of steel rolling mills, a unit manufacturing ball bearings, agro based units like dal mills, the most significant being large number of seed manufacturing units. Mahyco, Mahindra, Bejo-Shital are some of them. NRB bearing Ltd is the leading manufacturer of ball bearings used in automobiles and other heavy industrial purposes. There are four sugar factories in the district. These are Jalna Sahkari Sugar Factory at Ramnagar, Samarth Sahkari Sugar Factory at Samarthnagar, Bageshwari Sahkari Sugar Factory at Partur and the Rameshwari Sahkari Sugar Factory at Bhokardan. The MIDC has recently announced its plans to setup a bio technology park (BT Park) at Jalna with the help of private sector units. This park will give a tremendous boost to the BT sector in the backward area of Marathvada. At present 6 industrial areas are under MIDC Jalna.
District Industries Center (DIC)
DIC Jalna helps the unemployed for starting up business and Small Scale Industry (SSI).
The DIC and M.I.D.C. support the unemployed in the following ways:
•Providing training and guidance to the unemployed
•Pursuing Banks and financial institutes, for loans of applicants.
•Getting available land in the Industrial Area.
•Amenities like Electricity, Water, Roadways and Telephone.
•Recommendations for supply of Raw Material.
•Availability of Market.
Some of the schemes available through the DIC are Prime Ministers Rojgar Yojna (PMRY), Seed Money Scheme and DIC Loan Scheme (For rural workers).
