Surat: Textile dyeing and processing mills around Surat are facing death from fall in demand and decline in production rate. 

Of the nearly 350 mills that thrived in and around the Diamond City, around 20 have shut shop in the last three months. And, those that are still functioning, have been forced to work at 50 to 70% capacity. 

With the arrival of the festive season, owners were expecting demand to go up, but contrary to expectations, daily production has gone down to 3 crore metres per day, which at 100 per cent capacity, is 4.5 crore metres per day. Processors and mill owners say it is due to reduced purchasing power, changed fashion trends from polyester and government’s apathy in helping the industry revive itself. 

Those mills that downed shutters recently include around three each from Sachin and Pandesara, two to three in the city and two in Kadodara. Of the remaining 325 mills, operational workforce capacities have been reduced to 65 per cent labourers only. 

President of South Gujarat Textile processors Association (SGTPA), Jitu Vakhariya told TOI: “Majority of us are working in single shift with two days of holidays in a week. Once closed down, it is very costly and difficult to restart a unit. Therefore, many processors have not closed down their units, but cut down its capacity by half.” 

Vakhariya further said that some of the owners are operating only half of their machines and stopped second shift as production costs have also increased by 15 to 25 per cent due to rise in labour charges, raw material charges. 

On the other hand, less production in one day results in lower efficiency, more fuel consumption at times and even more cost per unit, he added. 

Another processor, who runs three units — two in Sachin and one at Palsana — said, “Purchasing power has reduced to a great extent in last one year. Customers who once purchased bulk of 30,000 metre material of a quality has now reduced the off take to 10,000-15,000 metres. This slump is mainly due to reduced demand of polyesters. 

We have lower quantity of job work now compared to a year ago when we used to get job work for 2 lakh metre of material at the start of the festive season. Now, the flow is reduced to 1 lakh metre only. We are operating the units for the sake of keeping them alive.” 

Published On : 25-07-2019

Source : Times of India