NELLORE: Cloth traders have been demanding a textile park for a long time in the region as there is a huge potential for wholesale and retail textile and garment trade in the area. Yielding to the demand of traders in Kavali, the State government has announced to construct a textile park spread over 60 acres at an estimated Rs 526 crore at Ulavapalla village in Nellore district. But there has been no progress so far. There are around 450 wholesale and retail textile shops in the Kavali cloth market.
“We purchase cloth from Erode and Coimbatore and sell ready-made garments in local markets after stitching and at lower profit margins. We have to pay additional charges for importing cloth. If the cloth is locally available, it would be very helpful to us. Hence, we demand the government to build a textile park here,” said K Raghava Rao, a cloth merchant.
The Kavali traders purchase cloth from Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kasi, Kolkata, Erode, Coimbatore, Tirupur and other parts of the country and sell the same in the market. They also sell the garments at cheaper prices across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Kavali cloth market was established in 1955. There are around 7,000 skilled workers and daily wagers working in Kavali. With the government not coming to their rescue, the cloth traders have planned to set up their own manufacturing units here. Recently, 10 manufacturing units were set up in the town.