The textile industry has stated that the issue between powerloom owners who work for wages and the textile producers has led to a manifold increase of cost of products such as bed sheets and women night wear apparels
Coimbatore: The clash between powerloom owners working for wages and textile producers has increased textile prices, stated the industry
The textile industry has stated that the issue between powerloom owners who work for wages and the textile producers have led to a manifold increase of the products such as bed sheets and women night wear apparels.
Arulmozhi, administrator of the Tamil Nadu Open End Spinning Mill Association (OSMA), stated that the textile industry is the second largest employment sector after agriculture nationally, with more than one crore and 10 lakh people and many rural women in particular are employed.
The textile industry accounts for 4.3 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and India's textile products exports are USD 38 billion. The Central and State Governments are implementing various schemes for the development of textile industry due to this.
There are 2 lakh powerlooms functioning in Coimbatore and Tirupur districts in which over three lakh are directly and indirectly employed.Of the two types of associations, Powerloom Owners Association weaves for wages. The other is the Textile Manufacturers Association, who procure yarn and place orders for cloth to powerloom owners, as powerloom owners do not purchase the yarn directly.
Occasional clashes between the two over wage agreements are solved after talks. However, the powerloom owners have been protesting for the past 20 days over wage hike. Due to frequent wage increase problems, textile manufacturers in Coimbatore and Tirupur districts have started manufacturing gada cloth by installing state-of-the-art powerloom machines called Sulzer Jet.
With the cotton prices and yarn prices hiked, the textile manufacturers are reluctant to pay higher wages because the wages paid to powerloom owners who weave for wages are not affordable. He said that this wage issue will increase the prices of products used by the poor, like the nigh wear apparels used by women, bed sheets etc. made with such fabrics manifold in the coming days.
'The economic hardship faced by the poor due to the pandemic is on the high, and if the price of textile products they use also goes up, the group will suffer greatly.'
The produced yarn in OSMA has been stagnant for more than 20 days due to the agitation and this will lead to a huge loss to the OSMA producers as the prices will go down much lower than the cotton rates at which it is currently being sold in the market in the coming days.
80% of powerloom plants use yarn produced in open end spinning mills and the agitation is worsening the situation with every passing day. Two types of OE yarns, warp and weft are used to produce the gada fabric. The warp is produced across the states in OE mills in the country while weft is produced only in Tamil Nadu.
Due to the agitation, the powerloom owners have shifted to Viscose Cotton Polyester Vleach Color Yarn production for all the Milka produced through the OE weft, the industry states that if this situation persists, the required OE Weft yarn procuring would become questionable in the future.
They have thus requested the Government of Tamil Nadu to take into consideration this issue and take steps to resolve the wage issue as soon as possible.
Arulmozhi added that, 'The gada fabric produced in Tamil Nadu are dyed and processed from the Northern States and brought back to Tamil Nadu and manufactured as various textile products. The textile processing plant at Cuddalore has been established as a result of the joint efforts of the South Indian Mills Association (SIMA) and various industry organizations with state-of-the-art technology to ensure that marine water and marine life and the surrounding population are not harmed.'
'The Government of Tamil Nadu should take steps to bring this into operation as soon as possible. If we do so, the cost of transportation to take the fabric to the Northern States for processing will be significantly reduced. This will result in no future wage dispute between textile manufacturers and powerloom owners.'