Yarn bank brings hope for garment industry

Manav Mander
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, February 8

The state’s first yarn bank has been launched in Ludhiana. It will facilitate the garment industry in procuring yarn without any middleman.

The knitwear industry demands that it should also be included in the ambit so that they too can avail of the facilities of the yarn bank like the handloom sector.

Yarn prices have always been a difficult problem to handle for the industry and with the setting up of the yarn bank, these issues will be taken care of.

Usually, the yarn sellers fix rates arbitrarily and have been creating problems for the industry whereas the industry in turn, has been demanding an autonomous government body to control the prices of yarn.

As of now, only power loom and loom industry can avail of the facility of yarn bank.

A special purpose vehicle (SPV) has been formed and 13 members have been taken from Ludhiana, who will be purchasing the yarn and will also control its input cost.

As much as Rs 2 crore has been given to the SPV for three years without any interest by the Textile Department. If three to four transactions are done in a year then it can be approved further.

“The yarn bank has been set up in Ludhiana but it is restricted only to loom and power loom industry. We have been demanding from the Textile Department that it should be extended to the knitwear industry also. The procedure of making cloth is the same while the only difference is that they use loom whereas we use machines,” said Vinod Thapar, chairman of Knitwear Club.

Sanjeev Khanna, who is running a handloom unit, said they had finally heaved a sigh of relief after the setting up of the yarn bank.

“The prices of yarn used to change every day. A few companies had developed a cartel and the buyers were being exploited. They were fixing prices arbitrarily and on the other hand, the input cost was increasing while the customer was not ready to pay more. We are hopeful that now all these issues will be resolved,” said he.