what was the impact of the decline of the textile industry in India
Answers
This trend has been further aggravated this year. Between January and June, the textile mills are estimated to have produced no more than 1,400 million metres of cloth, while the powerlooms turned out 3,500 million metres.
Inevitably, the mills are falling sick and closing down. While the Bombay mills' problems have been well publicised following the prolonged strike led by Datta Samant, the mills in Ahmedabad are faring no better.
Of the 62 mills in the city, six have closed down in the last year-and-a-half, and the Ahmedabad Textile Mills Association (ATMA) estimates that 15 others could follow suit unless the situation improves. At least six of these suffered losses ranging from Rs 1.3 crore to Rs 5 crore last year, and 10,000 workers have already been thrown out of their jobs.
Flourishing Mills: In contrast, the powerlooms are flourishing. In towns like Bhiwandi, Ichalkaranji, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Surat, Coimbatore, Bangalore and elsewhere, the number of power-looms is estimated to have grown from 3.29 lakh in 1977-78 to almost six lakh last year. In 1982-83 alone, the number jumped by a lakh.
While the Government estimates that there are another 1.6 lakh unauthorised powerlooms in operation, industrial and trade circles put the figure at four lakh - making for a possible million powerlooms.
Says Sudhir Dalai, who sold his textile unit and now works as general manager of Ambica Mills: "The fact that powerlooms have taken over the textile business has become obvious. I saw the trend some time back and sold my mill."
A number of factors have contributed to this trend. To start with, there is an excise differential: while an organised textile mill has to pay 40 paise per square metre on grey cloth, a powerloom is charged no more than 8 paise if the cloth is going to be hand-processed.
Labour costs are a second contributory factor. The worker in a mill gets on average Rs 35 per day, while a power-loom worker is often paid as little as Rs 10. There are other cost advantages too, in terms of lower overheads, so that a powerloom can market a metre of printed cotton cloth for Rs 5, whereas the mill cannot offer it for less than Rs 6.25.
Asks Girish Bhagvat Prasad, managing director of Prasad Mills, which till last year suffered accumulated losses of Rs 52.45 lakh: "Why should any consumer pay more for mill-produced cloth when he has a cheaper alternative? The powerlooms are throwing us out of business