NAGERCOIL: With the hike in import taxes, less demand for native cashew nuts and increasing number of rubber manufacturing units, cashew nut factories have been shutting down across the district over the last two years, leaving thousands of labourers jobless. Nearly 400 of the 536 cashew factories in Kanyakumari district have stopped functioning in the last two years. Many decades ago, cashew nuts were being processed in the district alongside rubber. Expecting a booming demand for cashew in the country, many entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu and Kerala invested in processing cashews. That’s when the district became a home for 536 factories, providing employment for 50,000 residents.
These factories used to import nearly 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes of raw cashews from many countries, including Vietnam and Africa. However, the demand for native cashew began to drop when a few of the owners began to set up factories in countries that cultivated cashews in large numbers.
Guess why?
Simply because that gave them more profits than what the Indian market did! Adding to this, slowly the rubber plantations and manufacturing units began to gain traction in the district, especially Kulasekaram area, leaving the labourers involved in cashew processing in grief.
R Geetha, a 39-year-old labourer, who works in different cashew factories for the last seven years said, “Initially, many women were given a set quantity of raw cashew nuts in sacks. All they had to do was roasting, cutting, pealing, cleaning and dividing the nuts in equal quantities. The women just by sitting at home used to earn close to Rs 1000 per week. Later, this income dropped to Rs 300-400 per week as most of the raw nuts were roasted in machines at the factories.
All that the ladies had to do was peal, clean and divide the quantity. And now that the factories are shutting down too, many of us have lost our livelihood.”Adding to this, a 35-year-old person with disability, who is a labourer at Kulasekaram said, “This has been mine and my neighbours’ source of income. Now, we lost our job. If the government supports and reopens the factories, thousands of women can earn a living.”
While some of the outlet owners closed down their factories and left the town, a few of them are still struggling to keep the show running. They are nevertheless piled up with loans.
The Cashew Factory Owners’ Development Association of Tamil Nadu general secretary MP Jayachandran shared that the situation of the owners was worse and many had closed their companies as they could not pay loans. One of owners also committed suicide in January because of debts. There are three reasons that has precisely led to the crisis in the district — one, increase in import taxes; two, lesser demand in market for native cashew and the last the growth of rubber industry in the district. Around 9.36 per cent tax was added to the existing tax of 5 per cent and the government reduced the tax by 2.5 per cent later.
As there is minimum cultivation of the nuts, the cashew nuts imported from Vietnam are distributed to all processing units and that too the outlets here, pay a huge price for the little raw nuts they receive.
On the other hand, a few businessmen import processed cashew nuts from Vietnam units and sell them at low prices in India. From importing nearly 30,000 tonnes of raw cashew nut in the district a few years ago, the number has now dipped to 10,000.
Addressing these issues, District Cashew Factories Workers Union Vice President P Vishwambaran said, “The district used to receive raw nuts from Cuddalore and Andhra Pradesh. Now that factories have been established in the respective cultivating areas, the factories in Kanniyakumari are running short of stocks. While the cashew trees were replaced by rubber trees, the factories and workers depending on this lost their livelihood.”