Tamil Nadu - Others   

Export firm sets up tailoring institutes in Karur, Usilampatti

M. Gunasekaran

Workers at a clothing company in Tirupur. — Photo: M. Balaji

TIRUPUR: With labour shortage haunting the knitwear industry of Tirupur, the enterprising exporting community was considering various methods to overcome the problem.

A set of export houses are conducting walk-in interviews in various towns across Tamil Nadu, especially in southern districts, and Kerala. Bringing unskilled and semi-skilled labourers to the factories and imparting them stitching and other training becomes a regular mode.

And operating buses and vans to the doorstep of workers around 50 km radius of Tirupur becomes order of the day for the major garment making units. Like spinning mills, big-size garment units are offering free accommodation to their workforce. Despite these efforts, the industry is still facing shortage of skilled labour round the year as orders from importers flows in continuously.

To find a permanent solution to this issue, Tirupur-based Network Clothing Company (NCC) has set up a training institute at Usilampatty, where unemployment is high, and in Karur with modern machinery.

"We have already invested crores of rupees on machinery and buildings for expanding the production base. This, we consider, as an investment on quality manpower. Trained manpower always give better results," says M. Ravi, managing director of the Rs.134-crore company.

The Tirupur Tailoring Institute at Usilampatty was inaugurated on Monday and another centre at Telungupatty, near Karur has been functioning for the last fortnight. The company has developed a syllabus for the 90-day course to handle three types of stitching machine used in knitwear production.

The TTI, Usilampatty has facilities to train 30 women a batch. The company mulls over opening a few more centres in the backward Dharmapuri district after evaluating its Usilampatty experience after two months. The women, irrespective of their education, are assured of a monthly salary of Rs. 2,170 initially at the NCC and would be provided hostel. Switching one company to other by workers is common here and a 25 per cent fresh workers do not return to work once they go on vacation to their native, says R. Nambirajan, director of NCC. "At present we have 400 workers. Around 50 of them would not return to work once they go on leave for Deepavali. The establishment of these training centres, we hope, would fill the gap," he adds. The Tirupur Exporters' Association's plea to the Government to start short-term tailoring course at all the Industrial Training Institutes across Tamil Nadu is yet to take off.

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