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Member of Parliament (Tirupur) V. Sathyabama recently met various Union Ministers to reiterate the need for mandatory pan-India implementation of the zero liquid discharge (ZLD) norms followed only in the wet processing segment of apparel production chain in Tirupur knitwear cluster.
In the representations given to Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan and Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, Ms. Sathyabama has said that the enforcement of ZLD norms in Tirupur knitwear cluster had resulted in reducing the environmental pollution and ensured recycling of the used water. “Since the implementation of ZLD norms is not mandatory for other textile clusters in the country, cost of wet processing for the apparel manufacturers in those clusters naturally comes down by almost 15 %. The situation thus places Tirupur apparel manufacturers at a disadvantage when it comes to cost-competitiveness”, she said.
The MP wanted mandatory implementation of ZLD norms across the country for providing a level playing field for Tirupur businessmen and also for protection of environment.
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Even as over 90% cotton crop has arrived in the markets and new crop season has already set in, the estimate for cotton arrival has been lowered fifth time for Punjab. On the other hand, the estimates have been revised upwards in the neighbouring states of Haryana and Rajasthan.
A loss of another over 30,000 bales of cotton is likely in Punjab as per the revised estimate of the arrival of fibre crop in state as against the earlier estimate in the beginning of March 2018. In the revised estimates, the crop arrival in grain markets of Punjab has been lowered at 9.67 lakh bales (1 bale = 170 kg) by cotton trading body Indian Cotton Association Limited (ICAL). The ICAL keeps tab on cotton arrival and price fluctuation in three states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and records sales.
Initially, the estimate was put at 12 lakh bales at the start of the season in October-November 2017 and was lowered to 11 lakh in December and again to 10.37 lakh in January and 9.97 lakh bales at the end of February 2018.
In Haryana, the estimates has been revised to 25.47 lakh bales on March 31 up from 24.30 lakh bales expected on February 28 and likewise estimates in Rajasthan has been revised to 23.12 lakh bales up from estimate of 22.14 lakh bales at the start of March. The less arrival in Punjab, as per market watchers, points towards Punjab crop sold in Haryana and Rajasthan.
An Indian trade union has asked 130 global garment brands for help in a dispute with a major label supplier in a rare move by workers that campaigners say spotlights an unmapped part of the supply chain.
The Garment and Textile Workers Union (GATWU) said a demand for fair wages and the reinstatement of more than 50 employees dismissed in recent months from AveryBSE 0.15 % Dennison’s factory in southern Karnataka state was from the “invisible worker”. Unions and activists say as companies volunteer to map their supply chains, labour violations at the end of complex manufacturing and distribution networks are often hard to spot.
“We wrote to brands because these workers are part of their supply chain and are being treated unfairly,” said Jayaram Kottagarahalli Ramaiah, an adviser at GATWU, which has an active membership of more than 5,000 workers in Karnataka. Workers tried to talk with management in recent months, wore black bands in protest and some went on hunger strike, but to no avail,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
California-based Avery Dennison – which is one of the world’s largest suppliers of labels, graphic tags and price tickets to the apparel industry – has denied all allegations. In a complaint to Avery Dennison’s management, the global brands, and the state labour department, the union said many of the workers had been employed on contract for at least five years and should have been made permanent staff. Calling the terminations illegal, GATWU accused the company of not paying minimum wages and benefits, and of threatening to close the factory should contract workers unionise.
Under Indian law, companies may hire contract workers for jobs that are not part of their “core work”, but must ensure payment of the minimum wage and access to benefits. Avery Dennison’s director of human resources for South Asia, Saurav Kumar, said engaging contract employees was both common practice and legal. Permanent jobs were offered to workers based on company’s requirements. Currently, a recruitment drive is going on … Contract workers who have the experience of working on machines in Avery Dennison are being given preference over external candidates,” he said in an email.
BRAND CONCERNS
The dispute is the latest in a series of rows between workers and management in India’s multi-billion dollar textile and garment industry that employs about 45 million workers. Campaigners have complained that a growing number of workers at suppliers have been suspended or dismissed within days of joining unions or attending union events. Brands have expressed concerns over accusations of discrimination against unionists, said Martin Buttle of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which brings together brands, unions, factory-owners and civil society groups. Avery Dennison is not an ETI member, but does supply labels to many ETI members, including H&M, Gap and Inditex.
ETI members recognise that the human rights of workers, including their rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, should be respected,” Buttle said by email. Avery Dennison had “agreed to keep them updated on their actions”, Buttle said.
Gowrish Venkategowda, 32, said Avery Dennison’s factory told him on Feb. 1 that his services as a data-entry operator earning 12,000 rupees ($187) a month were no longer needed. Then they went and hired people on daily wages to do the job I have done for the last 14 years,” he said. (Reporting by Anuradha Nagaraj. Editing by Robert Carmichael and Belinda Goldsmith; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking and climate change.
The Odisha government on Thursday invited European nations to be partner countries in Make in Odisha Conclave to be held in November this year. The second edition of the flagship investors meet of the state government will be organized November 11-15.
A state government delegation on Thursday held a round table meeting with trade counsellors from several European countries in New Delhi where they highlighted the investment opportunities in the vibrant business ecosystem of Odisha.
The delegation, led by Industries Secretary Sanjeev Chopra, briefed diplomats from six European countries about the state’s ‘Vision 2025’ that focuses on diversifying its industrial development.
The government has set a target of generating employment for 30 lakh citizens by attracting investments worth Rs 2.5 lakh crore in the focus sectors which include ancillary and downstream industries in metal sector, chemicals, plastics and petrochemicals, electronics manufacturing and IT, agro and seafood processing, tourism, textiles and apparel. “Owing to the proactive and progressive governance, Odisha is fast emerging as the manufacturing hub of Eastern India. Odisha’s business friendly policies and the development of world-class infrastructure have received very positive feedback from investors across the globe,” said Chopra.
He said over the last 3 years, the state government has embarked upon the implementation of a Business Reforms Programme to make it easier for companies to set up and operate in the state.
Chopra also presented some of the advantages of doing business in Odisha that include an “able and stable government, identified focus sectors based on competitive strengths, infrastructure led industrial development, resource rich coastal state, highly skilled technical manpower, first of its kind single window portal in the country – GOSWIFT, 100,000 acres of industrial land bank mapped through first of its kind GIS-based platform”.
The occurrence of hailstorms during harvesting months has become a common phenomenon for the farmers in Marathwada. Followed by three droughts in three years between 2012 and 2015, the unseasonal rains and hailstorm in parts of Marathwada has ruined hopes of better a harvest.
Raghunath Golde, a farmer from Ravegaon in Jalna, cultivates wheat and soyabean on the five acres he holds. He was expecting to earn Rs1.40 lakh from his yield of 35 quintals of wheat from the standing crops. The hailstorm, that lasted for just 10 minutes, ruined all his hopes as the crop was smashed to ground. Days before, his cotton was attacked by the pink bollworm that resulted in the loss of Rs3.50 lakh that he was expecting from the crop. He says he has been hit by natural calamities consecutively for past few years.
“With satisfactory rains in past two years, I was expecting to make up for the losses I incurred during the drought years. For last two years, it has been either unseasonal rains or hailstorm that has been destroying our standing crops. Delayed rains last year had damaged Kharip and rabi crops of soyabean, pulses, and wheat, among others. The insurance cover given by the state does not work, as many farmers have not taken cover due to the bad experience over past few years. Few crops such as grape are not eligible for the insurance cover, as its area under cultivation at the block level is below the average of the insurance parameter,” said Raghunath Golde, a farmer from Revgaon in Jalna district.
Malhari Pathade, a farmer from Thar village in Jalna, sustained heavy losses as his grape orchard on 10 acres was destroyed. He had sold his orchard with about 2,400 quintal grapes against the advance money of Rs15,000 from a trader. He was expecting to earn at least Rs50 lakh. “I will now end up getting a compensation of about Rs50,000 from the government,” he says.
Tryambak Jadhav, a social worker who is involved in counselling the farmers in Jalna, said, “Hailstorm is a common phenomena in Marathwada over past few years. But the hail stones that poured in February were bigger in size – around 20 mm – against the 6-mm stones in May or June. Secondly, the hailstorm in February proves disastrous as it destroys crops ready for harvesting. It is time to adopt technology to minimise the effect of the hailstorm. China has done it effectively.”
Almost a fourth of the tehsils in Marathwada have been affected by the hailstorm and unseasonal rainfall over the past three days. Standing crops on about two lakh hectares of land has been damaged, which has led to loss of crops of thousands of crores of rupees. The standing crops of wheat, jowar and grapes have been badly-hit in almost all the districts of Marathwada. The farmers have also complained of huge losses to the seed plants of onion and cotton in villages of Waghrul and Revgaon in Jalna.
Eight districts have reported three deaths and injuries to 17 farmers in the hailstorm in three days in Marathwada. 46 cattle have reportedly died, while thousands of chickens have also been killed. The district administration has begun conducting the punchnamas of the losses to the farmers in all the eight districts. “We expect the punchnamas to be completed in next few days. Our village and tehsil level officials have been on the field from Sunday, assessing the losses. The reports in the villages with higher losses may take some more time. The final decision about the compensation has to be taken by the state government,” said a top level officer from the divisional commissioner office.
When 2009 arrived, 40-year-old DM Kumar, a garment entrepreneur in Tamil Nadu’s textile hub of Tirupur, was caught unawares. His Rs 10-crore business was drying up thanks to the global economic meltdown. Clients from foreign shores stopped orders as their pockets emptied. Kumar struggled through until 2011, when the second blow fell. The Madras High Court, in February 2011, decreed that all dyeing units in Tirupur would have to shut down for violating pollution norms. They would only be reopened when they implemented zero-discharge protocols in order to protect the surrounding farmlands and rivers.
“The dyeing industry is the backbone of the textile industry in Tirupur,” said Kumar, chief executive of Eastern Global Clothing. “Smaller players like us usually work with limited capital. We generally put in 25 per cent of our own capital and the remaining 75 per cent comes from institutional loans and credit from our suppliers. My Rs 10-crore company was forced to drastically scale down to Rs 2-3 crore. Small timers simply went out of business,” he stated. Textile makers began to send their goods to Ludhiana, Kolkata and Ahmedabad for dyeing since most units in Tirupur were forced to shut down. This meant delays, quality shortcomings and upset customers. Transport by air freight alone comprised 10 per cent of the final fabric price. Industry leaders say that 25-30 per cent of garments in Tirupur were airlifted between 2011 and 2014 to avoid delays. Most of us were forced to bring the dyed textile by air freight due to huge delays,” said Kumar. “Air freight meant we had to pay cash on the spot. Since we were new customers for dyeing units in the other states, they demanded cash-and-carry. We had a terrible fund crunch,” he added.
The price of one T-shirt when exported worked out to $3. The same T-shirt when sold in the domestic market fetched $1. “Beg, borrow or steal, I had to export,” said Kumar. “I had to minimise the losses.” State government records show that close to 40,000 families working in the garment units surrendered their ration cards and headed back to their native villages in the southern districts in search of employment. In reality, though, says industry, the numbers could be double the official records. Growth of the sector was severely arrested, with export turnover remaining stagnant for about four years, hovering around Rs 12,000 crore.
Limping Back
The grit and enterprise of the textile makers of Tirupur though is legendary. Reeling from the blow by the Madras High Court, large and small businessmen quickly came together to find a solution. There was now an urgent need to invest in pollution control norms since their livelihoods depended on it.
Honestly none of us knew anything about pollution or the harmful effects of the effluents when we began our businesses way back in the 1970s,” said S Nagarajan, president of the Dyers Association of Tirupur. “We got together and shared knowledge.
Through a series of trial and error, we borrowed technology from various parts of the world and came up with our own version of effluent treatment plants,” he said.
These effluent treatment plants are of two types — Individual Effluent Treatment Plants and Common Effluent Treatment Plants (IETPs and CETPs, respectively). Larger manufacturers set up IETPs to process their waste, while smaller units came together to route their polluting effluents through a single CETP. Today, there are 18 CETPs in Tirupur. The first stage of treatment of the polluting effluent — the biological stage involving bacteria to break down the dyes — was copied from a similar method used in Italy. The second stage — reverse osmosis to cleanse the water — was picked up from desalination plants.
The third stage — evaporation, to remove the sludge — was a local innovation. These effluent treatment plants are, to put it simply, a result of South Indian ‘jugaad’.
We are now recycling 92 per cent of the water that is discharged as effluent,” said a proud Nagarajan. “We are able to reuse the same water a thousand times without a problem. We are also recycling the salt used. Only 0.5-1 per cent of the dye used is removed in the treatment process and sent for use in cement factories. We have attained zero liquid discharge,” he said. These effluent treatment plants, he says, have helped conserve 10 crore litres of water a day.
Costly Conservation
All of this though has come at a price. Grants from the Centre and the state government of Tamil Nadu totalled Rs 300 crore. The state government also arranged for interest-free loans to industry to the tune of Rs 200 crore. Out of a total of Rs 1,070 crore, close to Rs 600 crore was pumped in by industry and private loans from banks. Tirupur’s industrialists have managed to pay back most of the loans. Now, a sum of Rs 250 crore (inclusive of interest) remains pending with banks, which are threatening to shut down the effluent treatment plants if loans are not repaid.
Banks have started issuing notices to seize assets now,” said Nagarajan of the Dyers Association of Tirupur. “All 18 CETPs are of NPA (non-performing asset) status in the banks,” he added.
Nobody in the government took responsibility to help us out,” said R Raj Kumar, managing director of Best Corporation, who is also a joint secretary of the Tirupur Exporters’ Association. “Everything fell on the entrepreneurs. The government should have at least told us what to do, helped us out in terms of research and development. Industry is willing to be responsible and comply,” he said.
Industry leaders say that the cost of setting up these effluent treatment plants is equal to the cost of setting up a new textile-making unit itself. Power usage too has shot up as a result of the treatment plants — 50 per cent of power used by industry goes into these plants alone. As a result, the industry as a whole, they say, has become less competitive due to a forced additional 4 per cent hike in the final garment price.
Tirupur’s entrepreneurs had pinned their hopes on a grant of Rs 200 crore made to them by the 13th Finance Commission. With the change in government at the Centre, the Finance Commission was disbanded before the funds could be disbursed and the NITI Aayog came into being. “We have been asking the government to release the Rs 200 crore promised to us by the erstwhile Finance Commission,” said Nagarajan of the Dyers’ Association of Tirupur. This would help us tide over the crippling bank loans.” The textile industry also wants a ‘green tag’ to be issued by the Centre for textiles being exported from Tirupur.
“Our international clients who are leading garment brands are now insisting on compliance with environmental norms and we have managed to do the compliance all by ourselves,” said R Gopalakrishnan, chairman of Royal Classic Mills, a Rs 600-crore firm. “Green tags would help us greatly in marketing our product internationally and bring in more clients,” he said.
Tirupur’s textile industry is also hoping for quick implementation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Europe and the US so as to enable their goods to avail of a 9-12 per cent slash in import duties in these countries. “If these Free Trade Agreements are signed, Tirupur’s capacity will simply not be enough,” said V Elangovan, member of the executive committee of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), a body sponsored by the Union textiles ministry. “Today, Tirupur’s export turnover is over Rs 21,000 crore. FTAs can take it to Rs 1 lakh crore in just three years. We are requesting the Centre to implement at least sectoral agreements for the garment sector if the FTAs are taking too long,” he added.
A Global Outlook
Tirupur contributes 75 per cent to India’s total garment exports. India currently stands at sixth position globally in terms of garment exporting countries. With the double whammy faced by Tirupur in 2009 and 2011, smaller countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam have raced ahead, say industry experts.
“We are losing a fortune to Bangladesh,” rues Elangovan of the AEPC. “Bangladesh is moving towards $50 billion in garment exports while India is still at $23 billion,” he said. Elangovan adds that the textile industry is the second largest employer after agriculture in the country. And in the bustling little town along the banks of river Noyyal, small and large entrepreneurs speak the same language
Pakistan and Bangladesh are our direct competitors,” argued DM Kumar of Eastern Global Clothing. “Earlier there used to be only two seasons — summer and winter. Now leading global brands are placing orders for 16 seasons in a year! Can you imagine the volume of business? Every four weeks a new delivery has to be made. We can put India on the global trade map,” he said. As discussions on the Union budget get underway, Tirupur’s industrialists hope that in an election year, the Centre and the state would look favourably upon their gritty sector and give it a much-needed leg up for the future.
Jute mill owners are being restricted by the Office of the Jute Commissioner from selling sacking bags and carpet cloth in the open market and to private agencies.Concerned over reports that a number of jute mills are selling in the private market for price premiums, the Jute Commissioner’s office has imposed curbs on them.In a letter to the jute mills, Deputy Jute Commissioner Dipankar Mahato has directed all mills to seek consent from his office before selling sacking bags and carpet cloth to any agency. Failure to comply would invite action under the Jute and Jute Textiles Control Order, 2016.As per placements of indents by different foodgrain procuring agencies, the jute mills are mandated to supply 1.09 million bales (one bale is 180 kg) by March 13 this year. However, actual supplies as on February 12 stood at only 700,000 bales, leaving a backlog of 33.8 per cent or 350,000 bales. Over and above this backlog, the mills are required to further supply around 600,000 bales in March and April.Manish Poddar, chairman of Indian Jute Mills’ Association (IJMA) said, “We are fully geared up to meet the supply requirement for foodgrains.
The jute industry is well equipped to cater to the government demand.”According to the Jute Commissioner’s office, the backlog has been created primarily due to sale of jute sacking bags in the open market. The office feels the jute industry needs to gear up its production capacity and accord top priority to the manufacture and supply of B-Twill jute bags to the government. Earlier on December 27, 2017, the Jute Commissioner’s office had come up with an order asking all mills to use their sacking capacity for the exclusive manufacture of B-Twill jute bags. The order also restricted the industry from diverting supplies of sacking bags beyond government requirement till the entire quantity of the production control cum supply orders (PCSOs) were met.An industry source said open market sales by the mills were infrequent, as a bulk of the B-Twill bags were supplied to government procurement agencies.At present the jute industry has the capacity to manufacture 400,000 bales a month.
The figures made clear that India is set to overshoot in 2017-18 the $380.36 billion import bill of the previous financial year
Growth in exports reduced in January to 9.07 per cent, from 12.03 per cent in December.With exports of $24.38 billion, the growth rate in January dipped to a single digit for the first time in three months. The rate in December more than halved to 12.4 per cent, from November’s 30.5 per cent.“More than 6 per cent of the growth has been contributed by petroleum products. More importantly, labour-intensive sectors like garments, carpets, handicrafts, and man-made textiles are exhibiting negative growth, primarily due to liquidity crunch because of funds getting blocked under the goods and services tax regime,” Ganesh Kumar Gupta, president of the Federation of Indian Exports Organisations, said.Of the 30 major product groups, 20 were in positive territory in January, against 21 in December.On the other hand, the figures made clear that India is set to overshoot in 2017-18 the $380.36 billion import bill of the previous financial year.The pace of imports continued to quicken for the third straight month, leading to inbound shipments in January rising by 26.10 per cent, higher than the 21.1 per cent rise in the previous month.This makes the cumulative import bill for the first 10 months of the current financial year $379 billion.
The trade deficit widened to a 56-month high of $16.3 billion in January, against the $14.9 billion deficit in December and $9.91 billion registered a year ago in January 2017.In this financial year, the deficit increased to $131.14 billion till January, against the $114.9 billion in the corresponding period in the previous year.The deficit was fed by a huge rise in oil imports, which shot up by more than 42 per cent in January to $11.65 billion after the 34.9 per cent rise in the previous month.However, gold imports slipped by 22.07 per cent to $1.59 billion after the 71.5 per cent jump in the previous month.The dip in gold imports was more than offset by higher imports of silver, pearls, and precious and semi-precious stones, said Aditi Nayar, principal economist, Icra.Non-oil and non-gold imports, taken as a sign of industrial demand, rose 24.43 per cent in January, after rising 12.9 per cent in December. This implies that the recent, strong pickup in industrial production may continue over the coming months.
Index of industrial production growth in December stood at 7.1 per cent.A sizeable chunk of India’s major export segments, including refinery products, saw a faster growth rate of 39.5 per cent in January, against the 25.15 per cent rise in December.Pharmaceuticals rose 8.6 per cent from 6.95 per cent in December and organic and inorganic chemicals by 33.6 per cent from 31.36 per cent in the previous month.However, major segments saw a reduction in growth rates. They are engineering goods, which grew 15.77 per cent in January, compared to 25.32 per cent in December, as well as gems and jewellery, which rose 0.89 per cent from 2.38 per cent in December.Earlier this month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced in the Budget the government hoped exports would grow 15 per cent in the current financial year. Till January, India’s cumulative merchandise shipments in 2017-18 reached more than $246 billion.“With the merchandise trade deficit in January being sharply higher than expected, we have revised our forecast for the 2017-18 current account deficit to $47-50 billion, or nearly 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), from the earlier expectation of $42-44 billion,” Nayar said.This is the last crucial data before the GDP numbers for the third quarter of 2017-18 and the second Advance Estimates for the current financial year are released at the end of February.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Salem district will organise an MSME summit on the topic ‘accelerating for growth and business development’ in the city on February 17.
S. S. Yuvaraj, chairman, CII Salem district, told presspersons here on Wednesday that the MSME sector was the backbone of the national economic structure. With around 36.1 million units throughout the country, MSMEs contributed around 6.11 % of the GDP from manufacturing and 24.63 % of the GDP from service activities as well as 33.4 % of the country’s manufacturing output.
Learning platform
Mr. Yuvaraj said that the summit aimed at providing a learning platform for new business opportunities that the MSME sector could avail of from various government schemes. The summit is open for MSME companies, industry leaders, senior government officials, sectorial associations and heads of financial institutions. For delegate registration, interested people can contact Mr. Ruban over ph. no: 79049 69238 / 99439 99630 or e-mail: ruban.ebenezer@cii.in /cii.salem@cii.in.
The head of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce, Na’el Al-Kabariti, on Wednesday discussed with the Indian Ambassador to Jordan, Shubhdarachini Tripathi, ways to foster bilateral trade and investment relations at the level of private sector institutions.
During the meeting, Al-Kabariti said bilateral ties are “distinguished and rooted” in the various fields, especially in the economic domain, and added India is a crucial trading partner of the Kingdom.
Al-Kabariti stressed the desire of the Jordanian private sector to strengthen ties with its Indian counterpart, to schedule visits of delegations and to benefit from the mutual agreements signed to expand the bulk of goods exchanged. He said the Jordanian-Indian business forum is slated to be held in the Indian capital later this month.
“I share a similar view with the Indian private sector to launch trade and investment partnerships and to revive the signed accords to increase the Kingdom’s exports to the Indian market,” he added.
Commenting on India’s strengths, the Indian economy has become one of the most important world economies, Indian goods are competing robustly at world markets and New Delhi turned a key player in the international trade system, he pointed out. In turn, the Indian envoy expressed her appreciation for the efforts of His Majesty King Abdullah II to boost and support bilateral ties, and lauded the noted attention the recent visit of the Indian prime minister to Amman drew.
Tripathi also praised efforts of the Jordanian private sector, represented by the Jordan Chamber of Commerce, to forge closer relations with the Indian private sector institutions and to give fresh momentum to the economic relations between the two countries. The Kingdom’s exports to India during the 11 months of last year amounted to 337 million dinars compared to 330 million dinars imports.
Jordan exports to India cover metal products, chemical industries, machinery and equipment, while it imports mineral and food products, chemical industries, machinery and equipment, metals, and textile materials.
