Workers' strife & migration upsets Surat's powerloom sector

28 Jan '11

2 min read

The turbulences in Surat's powerloom sector and migration of several loom workers thereafter are all likely to prove disastrous for the India's largest man-made fabric industry.

According to the industry sources, there are no hopes that the migrant workers who have left for their native places in last few days, would come back before June 2011. This is thus likely to result in heavy losses for the Rs 300 billion industry.

The powerloom industry in the city which houses over six lakh machines, each day weaves around 30 million metres of gray fabric worth over one billion rupees. The recent strife of labourers over the wage rise has halted the operations of over five lakh powerloom machines in a number of industrial estates in the city. Owing to which, the weaving industry is each day suffering a loss of around Rs 800 to 900 million, over the last few days.

Dearth of workers has resulted in a decline in fabric production over the last three months. This is mainly because over 15 percent of the workers particularly from Andhra Pradesh and Bihar have migrated to their native places owing to the large scale industrial development and rising job prospects under the NREGA scheme out there.

Of the seven lakh workers employed in the weaving sector of the city, not less than 80 percent come from Orissa, of which over 50,000 workers have left for their hometowns in past some days, while several others are expected to follow their path, owing to the workers' strife which has now entered in its second week.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

More Textiles News - India...