Amritsar authorities have little data on old factories

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, August 30

Post independence, Amritsar has seen the vanishing of its textile-processing, fan-manufacturing, carpet-weaving and pharmaceutical industries. These labour-intensive industries offered jobs to skilled and unskilled labourers.

It attracted migrants from states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to come to the holy city to earn their livelihood.

The Directorate of Factories, a wing of the Labour Department, has a registered strength of units not more than 1,200 in the district.

Dharam Pal Bhagat, General Manager, district office of the Department of Industries and Commerce, said the department does not collect data of the units being closed. 

He said that it was not mandatory for the industrial units to register with the department.

Meanwhile, the department has data of new industry being set up every year. 

As many as 144 units were set up with a total investment of Rs 55.3 crore in 2014-15. 

In the 2013-14, 185 units were set up with investment of Rs 49.81 crore. 

The majority of these units are in the category of micro and small. Only two medium-scale units came up in the border district in the past two years. Unconfirmed reports state that over 20,000 registered industrial units, big or small, are being run here and the majority of them from unsafe structures.

Factories here are scattered all over the city and hence, keeping a tab on them is a mammoth task. 

Fan sector’s wings clipped

Once a flourishing sector, the fan-manufacturing industry of Amritsar has almost vanished. From over 2,500 units, the number has come down to less than 10. These units also include some ancillary units that produce fan components, including wire and plastic parts. The industry used to produce a vast range of ceiling, table, exhaust and pedestal fans. Satnam Singh, former fan manufacturer who is now into hotel business, said, "Leave aside announcing any bailout package, no government has ever bothered to even constitute a commission to take stock of the problems facing the industry."

Carpet firms floored

The holy city once used to be famous for hand-made Persian-style carpets. Also called Bukhara style (a place in Iran where the art is popular), the art is on the verge of extinction. Till 1995, locally weaved carpets were exported to European countries and Russia. The industry used to employ hundreds of skilled weavers from the town and its surrounding villages. 

The once-flourishing textile industry had encouraged the birth of various ancillary industries. The processing and dyeing industry for textiles was one of them. The number of units has come down from over 100 to nearly 30 now.

Almost all industrial players are unanimous in saying that the opening of the Indian economy in the early 1990s and consequent arrival of similar materials from different parts of the globe, especially textile goods from China and Korea, proved the proverbial last nail in their coffin.