The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : All is not too well, tailors in a fix

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 28, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

All is not too well, tailors in a fix

Many have already abandoned their business and taken to better jobs at textile centres

— PHOTO: R. M. RAJARATHINAM.

Hard to mend: Tailors at work in a tailoring mart at Subramaniapuram in Tiruchi.

Rising costs and shrinking margins have put a damper on small-time tailors. Many tailors have already abandoned their business and taken to better jobs at textile centres like Tirupur and Karur, though they have to pay the cost of migration.

A consolation, however, for them is a fair patronage from their customers in the wake of the Ramzan and Deepavali festival season which has started picking up. “But for these twin festivals, which off late have been coinciding over the last few years, we would have been out of the profession,” some of the tailors observed.

Inflation has broken the back of the people. The prices of basic food commodities have increased to a extent that it has reduced the purchasing power of people and they are restricting their shopping during the festival season, in comparison to last year.

Rising costs of raw materials, right from needle, press buttons, yarn to zip; increase in the wages of the employees; and hike in the rent for the shops have all made their economic condition miserable.

To balance between soaring prices and the need to retain their clientele, tailors have effected a marginal increase in the stitching charges.

Prices on the rise

The prices of raw materials involved in the tailoring trade have gone up abnormally. The price of a needle has shot up from 25 paise to Rupee one; small thread bundle from Rs. 3 to Rs. 3.50, one metre of collar paste from Rs. 48 to Rs. 54; pant patti paste from Rs. 50 to Rs. 56.

“What we have hiked is quite negligible compared to the abnormal increase in the expenditure we have been incurring. It may appear that the stitching charges have gone up, going by the complaints of common masses. But in reality, when taken into account the ever-rising prices of the raw materials, what we have hiked – Rs. 10 for stitching a pant from Rs. 120 to Rs. 130 or a shirt from Rs. 80 to 90 is not at all commensurate with the actual costs”, says A. Nizamudeen, owner of the Wisdom Tailors in Subramaniapuram.

Slow down

The owner of Hero Tailoring Mart on the Madurai Road here said that the present inflationary trend had placed him in a catch-22 situation. “My costs are rising alarmingly, but the government has done nothing to relieve us of our difficult economic crisis. I am forced to raise my prices, which in turn slows down business,” he said, adding that he had no choice but to raise the stitching charges of pants to Rs. 125 from Rs. 100 and that of the shirt from Rs. 80 to Rs. 100.

The vocation demands efficiency acquired over a period of time. It is very hard to assemble a team of talented labourers. Even if one succeeds, it is too difficult to retain them through attractive wages.

The wages for a skilled labourer has increased by a margin of Rs. 5 - from Rs. 35 to Rs. 40 for a pant and from Rs. 20 to Rs. 25 for a shirt. Grooming young boys has been posing a challenge in the wake of prevailing opportunities that offered “more remuneration with less labour”. Wages ranging from Rs. 50 and 75 a day does not lure them.

Any unforeseen expenditure for the maintenance of sewing machine has been yet another hurdle for the tailors possessing one or two machines.

Although big-scale tailors could manage the crisis to the extent possible, all is not well with the small time tailors. Even for minor repair and services of the sewing machines, one has to spend a minimum of Rs. 500.

For many a woman, tailoring has been a pastime vocation fetching them a fair income every month. The inflation has directly hit these indoor tailors. “I am in this field for the past two decades and I have been earning to my content. But the last nine months have proved a testing period, depriving me of any assured income,” says Shameem of Pudukottai road.

The Ramzan and the Deepavali season is not so cheerful this year as the skyrocketing inflation has split apart the lives of the people, she adds.

The presence of readymade garments at fairly cheap rate has further affected the small tailoring marts.

Readymade pants are available for prices ranging from Rs. 200 compared to the stitching charge of Rs. 125 for a pant. Even regular customers have started moving towards readymades, laments a good number of tailors. “All these years my family used stitch new clothes for Deepavali. This year I have planned to go only for readymade garments”, says P. Vigneswaran of Kallukuzhi, a carpenter by profession.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu