Ginni Int. Blog

As part of a continuing nationwide protest against rising prices of cotton yarns, textile manufacturers, power loom owners, yarn dealers, textile retail dealers and wholesale dealers as well as textile shops will be observing a token strike for two days from today, February 14. This decision has been taken by the textile traders as well as manufacturers at a meeting which was attended by over 500 traders and power loom owners.

C B Gunsekaran, the President of the Erode Cloth Merchants Association feels that with the price of yarn having enhanced four times within one year’s period, manufacturers and others in the textile trade are facing a lot of problems in the buying and selling process. The association has urged the Union and the state governments to take the necessary actions in order to curtail the yarn prices.

Industry players have been continuously raising their voices against the increasing cotton yarn prices, which have gone up by 80 per cent to 100 per cent in the last one year. This has forced many manufacturers to close their operations and render their labors jobless. This has resulted in escalating the prices of final apparel products in the market.

The entire Indian apparel industry in November last year had also participated in another token strike as a part of a nationwide protest against a shortage of cotton yarns and rising prices. Manufacturers and exporters of textile and apparel products across India, who bring in earnings of more than Rs 50,000 crores annually through their shipments, observed this strike while seeking government’s intervention to solve the problems of escalating cotton prices and yarn product’s prices which have doubled in the last nine months. Nationally, around 50,000 manufacturing units from power-loom, handloom and made-up segments participated in this strike and kept their operations shut for a day. The Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) had called for immediate government intervention to limit cotton yarn exports in a bid to reduce yarn prices and ensure more is available to local manufacturers.

However, the problem seems to be continuing with no respite as the government seems laid-back on this issue. The garment sector is one of the most labor-intensive industries of India and employs 35 million people and so is expecting prioritized support from the government against the rising prices.

Rgds/saurabh