RAJANNA-SIRCILLA: The textile industry in Rajanna-Sircilla district is facing an acute crisis, which, if not resolved immediately, will spell doom for hundreds of families. It is understood that many of the polyester manufacturing units in the district may not resume operations post-Sankranti as there have been no fresh orders for several months now.
At an emergency meeting convened by the Polyester Clothes Association, the organisation’s president Mandala Satyam officially declared the shutdown of power looms.
Satyam said warehouses are overflowing with lakhs of metres of unsold cloth. This surplus stock left polyester textile manufacturers in a precarious position as they were unable to purchase fresh yarn and sustain production. He said that without the pending dues from the cloth produced being cleared and new orders from the state government, the industry cannot afford to make further investments.
The industry experienced a brief period of normalcy following the Bathukamma saree orders. However, the lack of fresh orders for a long time has rendered thousands of workers, who rely on weaving for their livelihood, jobless.
Adding to the industry’s woes is the dissatisfaction among polyester textile manufacturers regarding a recent government decision. The government has indicated that it would allocate orders equally between a textile park equipped with 600 powerlooms and the Sircilla powerlooms, which currently operate around 25,000 units. This decision has created further uncertainty, casting a shadow of doubt over the future of the Sircilla textile industry.
Notably, this is not the first time the powerloom sector is about to be shut down. During BRS rule, the polyester cloth industry was shut for a few days with workers demanding power tariff subsidies like those implemented in Maharashtra and Karnataka. However, the demand was later withdrawn after the then textile minister KT Rama Rao’s intervention.