Conditions "getting worse" for Indian mills

INDIA: Conditions "getting worse" for Indian mills

By Raghavendra Verma | 4 March 2013

The power outages and industrial unrest that have already caused chronic shutdowns among Indian textile mills are escalating, the industry's main trade association has warned.

Severe electricity shortages are to blame for mill closures in southern India while labour shortages are responsible elsewhere, said Anil Gupta, vice president of The Textile Association (India). "On both these fronts the situation is getting worse," he told just-style.

Financial issues have also contributed to 104 textile mills shutting their gates since 2009, the Indian Parliament's upper house heard on 27 February from textiles minister Anand Sharma.

"Mills are also closed on account of...lock-outs (by management)," Sharma added. Affected factories are in the private and public sectors and use both cotton and manmade fibres.

Gupta blamed labour shortages on the government's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which provides 100 days of paid employment annually per rural household whose adults volunteer for unskilled manual work, mostly on village roads and wells, and similar tasks.

Instead of paying MGNREGS money directly to workers, encouraging them to stay in villages, The Textile Association wants government to pay the industry to underwrite jobs, mainly in urban centres.

"We can give 350 days of employment if this scheme is running though the textile industry," Gupta said. One solace is that "plenty of cotton and other raw materials are available for the industry", he added.

Sectors: Apparel, Fibres & fabrics, Manufacturing, Sourcing