“My only skill is weaving, and with the abrupt shutdown of power looms over the past fortnight, I am struggling financially,” says B. Srinivas, a 35-year-old energy loom employee who lives in Indiramma Colony, abutting the Sircilla Textile Park in Telangana’s Rajanna Sircilla district. “My mother took to beedi-rolling to supplement the family income, but the strenuous work fetches meagre wages and is hardly a viable source of livelihood,” he provides.
His five-member household, together with mom, spouse, and two kids, lead a hand-to-mouth existence in the course of the lean season, he rues. “I get anywhere between ₹12,000 and ₹15,000 as a monthly wage during the peak season and endure financial difficulties during the lean season extending to almost six months,” he says.
Almost 1,000 energy loom staff of the textile park, positioned 8 kilometres from Sircilla city, are observing a bleak future as are the 9,000-odd staff employed immediately and not directly in additional than 25,530 energy looms within the city.
The disaster is multi-factorial. The first catalyst is the nationwide downturn within the demand for cloth, affecting each home consumption and export markets. Other than authorities orders, the fabric produced in Sircilla primarily goes to the Pathergatti market in Hyderabad, about 130 km away. “We used to sell polyester fabric worth around ₹300 to ₹350 crore per annum until the slowdown brought the sales to a near standstill,” says an area energy loom unit proprietor, unwilling to be named.
The rise in manufacturing prices has compounded the trade’s woes, making it more and more tough for producers to keep up competitiveness. This surge in prices, attributed to varied elements corresponding to elevated uncooked materials costs, labour bills, and vitality prices, has eroded revenue margins. Consequently, a number of textile items in Sircilla discover themselves at a crossroads, struggling to stability sustainability and profitability. It used to value ₹7 to make a metre of polyester cloth three years in the past; now it prices round ₹8.70, the ability loom proprietor contends.
A “defunct” energy loom unit is getting used as a “godown” on the Textile Park close to the textile city of Sircilla.
| Photograph Credit score:
P. Sridhar
One other indicator of the trade’s misery is the mounting stockpile of unsold polyester fabric. This surplus has left many producers grappling with the problem of managing extra stock. Business sources consider that polyester fabric value over ₹100 crore is mendacity unsold with the ability loom items in Sircilla and the textile park collectively.
Pending payments of bulk orders
Business sources say payments value over ₹200 crore associated to Bathukamma saris and Rajiv Vidya Mission (RVM) faculty uniform fabric manufacturing have been pending with the federal government for over three months.
The earlier State authorities, led by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), used to position bulk orders for manufacturing of thread-bordered polyester filament yarn saris meant totally free distribution amongst girls in the course of the State’s in style floral competition, Bathukamma, yearly. The erstwhile BRS authorities positioned the orders with the mutually aided cooperative societies (MACS) of weavers/ small scale industries (SSI) items in Sircilla for manufacturing of Bathukamma saris, RVM uniform garments, KCR kits, Anganwadi saris, Ramzan and Christmas present packs up to now eight years.
Since 2016, round 58.56 crore metres of material value ₹2,758 crore have been produced by the ability loom trade in Sircilla. Almost 6.22 crore metres of material was made in Sircilla for Bathukamma saris in 2023, official sources mentioned.
Anxious energy loom house owners and grasp weavers at the moment are pinning their hopes on the brand new Congress authorities in Telangana for clearance of the pending payments and inserting of contemporary orders for Bathukamma saris on the earliest.
Hari Prasad, a handloom weaver, works at his handloom unit within the textile city of Sircilla.
| Photograph Credit score:
P. Sridhar
Sircilla MLA and former Handlooms and Textiles Minister within the erstwhile BRS authorities, Ok.T. Rama Rao took a eager initiative and offered bulk orders underneath the Bathukamma sari scheme for the mutually aided cooperative societies of weavers and the small scale industries (SSIs), an influence loom weaver of B.Y. Nagar in Sircilla says WHO, in search of anonymity.
“Government initiatives to modernise the looms, upgrade the skills of workers and help weavers grow into entrepreneurs failed to take off on expected lines in 10 years of BRS rule,” he provides.
Final week, Rama Rao, who represents Sircilla Meeting constituency, made an enchantment to the Congress authorities via a publish on social media platform ‘X’ to proceed the earlier BRS authorities’s interventions so as to stop the textile trade in Sircilla from slipping right into a deep disaster.
Close to-total dependence on authorities orders and a drastic decline in non-public orders has exacerbated the scenario, forcing a number of energy loom house owners to halt manufacturing during the last fortnight to keep away from losses.
An awesome variety of energy loom items are but to renew full-fledged manufacturing, however bulletins by the associations representing the ability loom house owners within the textile park and the textile hub of Sircilla relating to resumption of manufacturing.
Sircilla reeled underneath a wave of suicides by weavers in the course of the late Nineties and early 2000s resulting from deep disaster within the energy loom sector. In 2003, the textile park was arrange on a sprawling 65-acre land parcel at Baddenapally close to Sircilla within the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh to spice up textile sector and promote entrepreneurship among the many weavers’ group.
The textile park functioned with round 119 items of rapier looms for a few years. Over the previous few years, the variety of items has come all the way down to round 60. Additional, the Energy Looms Service Centre, Product Show Centre and numerous different services have change into defunct.
A number of non-operational items have became godowns on the premises of the textile park. A number of the house owners of the “loss-making” items allegedly offered the looms and set free the premises of their defunct items as godowns in violation of norms.
Expert weavers sit idle
Sircilla is endowed with gifted handloom weavers, together with one who introduced laurels to the textile city by weaving saris that may match into matchboxes. The weaving prowess of Sircilla-based handloom weaver V. Hari Prasad, who wove the G20 brand on a 24×12 inch fabric final 12 months, drew reward from handloom connoisseurs.
“The rich handloom craft is facing the risk of fading away. The number of handloom weavers is fast dwindling. Sircilla is now home to just a little over 100 handloom weavers,” says one other weaver, requesting anonymity.
The native energy loom house owners are discovering it tough to promote the polyester cloth at Pathergatti wholesale market in Hyderabad because the city-based retailers are procuring gray fabric from Malegaon and different textile cities in Maharashtra resulting from its low worth, trade sources clarify. The polyester cloth from Malegaon is priced at ₹8 per metre, which is about ₹1 lower than the material produced in Sircilla, sources added.
“We had to halt production for four days last week due to lack of fresh orders and piling up of unsold fabric stock,” Sircilla Fabric Producers Welfare Affiliation president M. Satyam says.
Street to redemption
The ability looms in Sircilla have resumed work in view of contemporary orders from the federal government for manufacturing of 20 lakh metres of Rajiv Vidya Mission (RVM) faculty uniform fabric, Satyam says, urging the State authorities to clear the pending payments of Bathukamma saris in addition to to position a contemporary indent for making Bathukamma and Ramzan present saris. Continuation of fifty% energy subsidy to the SSI energy loom items is important to avert the disaster, he insists.
Assured work all year long and improve of energy looms, expertise, and product vary maintain the important thing to staving off the disaster within the Sircilla energy loom trade, says CITU district secretary Ok. Ramana. “The owners of power loom units at the textile park are providing work to workers only when the government places orders, and then abruptly halting production in the name of a crisis, leaving the workers in the lurch,” he alleges. The lull interval this 12 months is marked by a way of ambiguity amongst a piece of the ability loom house owners over the prospects of contemporary authorities orders.
He says the brand new authorities ought to give orders to solely those that function the items in a full-fledged method to make sure common work to the ability loom staff.
Requested in regards to the scenario, Regional Director, Handlooms and Textiles division, V. Ashok Rao says the federal government has positioned contemporary indent for manufacturing of 60 lakh metres of RVM faculty uniform fabric with the ability loom items within the textile park and in Sircilla city (40 lakh metres plus 20 lakh metres, respectively). Greater than 50% of the full powerloom items in Sircilla, together with these on the textile park, have resumed manufacturing, he asserts.
What’s the course of for clearance of pending payments and contemporary orders for manufacturing of Bathukamma saris in Sircilla? An official of the Handlooms and Textiles Division says, “It is a policy decision to be taken by the new government in Telangana.”
