If you are someone who loves wearing a crisply pressed shirt or a saree, you would have shell out a few extra rupees henceforth.
The price of coal that your local laundry shop uses to iron clothes has seen a spike over the last six months. This is now forcing a number of clothes ironing shops to increase their tariff, some by `3 for a single cloth.
Owners of these shops say they are reeling under heavy losses, owing to high prices of coal over the last few months.
According to them, there are two varieties of coal available in the market. There is first grade coal, which produces more heat and requires a lesser quantity, which now costs around `65 per kg. Last year during Deepavali, the same cost `35 to `40.
“The cost has become double. And the supply is also lower. We are having a hard time with our business,” says Jagir Hussain, who runs an ironing shop in Triplicane. On an average, his shop requires four kilograms of coal.
Low quality coal, usually referred to by these men as kaatu kari, has also seen an appreciation in price with a kilogram now costing `40 from about `25 that it cost last year. Such increases in price of a crucial component of their business means that many such shops have already begun to increase prices. While they had been charging `15 for pressing a saree, some have now increased it by `5. Ironing other clothes now cost `6, up by `1 from the price that was charged last month.
But it is not just the coal price that has resulted in higher charges for the service. Shop owners say the labour cost for the person ironing the clothes has touched `700 per day.
“Labour is now too costly. Small shops like us are affected even though we employ only one person for the job. I pick up and drop off clothes from the apartments and so I cannot do the ironing. An extra man is a necessity,” says Damodaran, a ironing shop owner in T Nagar.
These shop owners say that coal prices usually move up during the monsoon season. Hence an across-board upward revision of charges in the near future is inevitable.