Vikas Sharma / Chandigarh October 20, 2008, 0:25 IST After handicrafts helped Himachal Pradesh earn fame, sericulture is now catching the fancy of small and marginal farmers in the state, who are trying to gain from it. Sericulture is not only providing subsidiary employment, but is also supplementing the income of rural farmers, especially the economically weaker sections of society, who are rearing silk worms for producing silk cocoons. As many as 8,400 below the poverty line (BPL) families spread over 1,800 villages are practising sericulture in Himachal Pradesh and the state government plans to increase the number of families practising it from the existing 8,400 to 30,000 and to increase their average annual income from Rs 5,000-6,000 to Rs 20,000 per annum. Sericulture is practised in eight districts