Tamil Nadu

Hosiery manufacturers seek banks’ help

— Photo: M. Balaji

Bonus time: Textile workers in Tirupur awaiting Deepavali bonus.

Tirupur: It is Deepavali time and the lakhs of textile workers employed at the hundreds of hosiery units in the knitwear cluster of Tirupur are eagerly awaiting the festival bonus.

But with the industry facing ‘functional constraints’ for the last few months owing to frequent power cuts, economical factors and hike in the cost of fuel, the hosiery manufacturers are now facing an uphill task to disburse bonus to their employees on time.

The huge monetary fluctuations causing rupee to appreciate against the dollar and then depreciate suddenly, all within a span of a few months, have put enormous financial burden on the entrepreneurs.

Compounding their woes, erratic power supply and unannounced load shedding lasting many hours have paralysed production.

Since most of the hosiery units in Tirupur fall in the small scale sector, they are finding it financially unviable to rely too much on generators for power generation to meet their delivery deadline owing to recent escalation in the fuel prices.

Mohan P. Kandasamy, president of South India Hosiery Manufacturers Association (SIHMA), told The Hindu that most of the hosiery units had registered production loss to the tune of 30 per cent during the last few months owing to disruptions in the power distribution happening through out the day and even at the odd hours. “The situation has thus drained the financial resources of the hosiery units considerably,” he said.

In this scenario, the hosiery manufacturers are now looking forward to the banks to lend a helping hand to meet their obligation of bonus payments to workers.

Mr. Kandasamy said the association had requested financial institutions to sanction overdrafts to the units to help them wriggle out of the piquant situation they were in. “The bank overdraft could be regulated within a period of 30 days,” he said.

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