Amritsar-based textile industry grapples with increasing raw material costs

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 27

The city-based textile industry is grappling with the twin challenge of high raw material cost and low demand in the current Covid-induced market.

Cost of textile manufacturing has increased considerably after yarn spinners and manufacturers of dyes and chemicals increased the prices of their products from 50 to even 100 per cent. On the other hand, moderate demand for finished products in the market did not give them enough room to pass on the hike.

Over 1,000 textile units in the district are engaged in manufacturing tweed, blazers, shawl, blankets, dress material, suiting and shirting. With a combined annual turnover of over Rs 10,000 crore, it offered employment to thousands of skilled and unskilled workers. Despite all this, local textile industry no longer occupies the sobriquet of the Manchester of India.

Kamal Dalmia, running a yarn processing unit, said, during the past few years, China became a major exporter of almost all ingredients used in manufacturing final products of textile at a reasonable price.

The hike in prices of yarn dyes and chemicals used in the textile industry prompted big domestic yarn spinners and manufacturers of these products to pass on the hike to textile manufacturers.

For instance, polyester cotton blended yarn before the Covid-19 used to cost Rs 175 per kg and now it is Rs 250 per kg. Similarly, polyester filament yarn costs Rs 125 per kg which was priced at Rs 80.

The Textile Industry, which is second after agriculture in providing employment, is already battling the crisis posed by demonetisation and GST. Currently, textile products are not the priority of the masses. Demand for textile products has been further affected by the rise in prices of the final product due to increase in prices of input cost on its basic raw materials - yarns, dyes and chemicals.

Deepak Bajaj, operating a unit of dyeing and printing of textile, said prices of almost all variants of dyes and chemicals got increased between 25 to 30 per cent after the unlocking of lockdown. He said the processing industry was further battered by nearly 30 percent hike in petcock.  

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