Tamil Nadu - Erode   

Power cut hits production

R. Sundaram

Weaving of bedsheets affected

ERODE: The severe power cut in Chennimalai area has caused the reduction in production for the past fifteen days.

Chennimalai is noted for its bed sheet and bed spread production. More than 5,000 powerlooms are involved in the production of bed sheets. It is providing employment opportunities to thousand of labourers.

But during last month, due to power cut and hike in yarn prices, the production was slightly affected.

Now, Chennimalai town is experiencing power shut down for nine hours continuously on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On these two days there is no power supply from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., so the powerlooms remain idle.

The President of the Powerloom Owners Association V.N. Saminathan told The Hindu on Wednesday, ‘We could not operate the powerlooms using the generators, as it will cost double compared to using regular electricity. So we are operating the powerlooms on these two days from 5 p.m. to morning continuously, by providing night shift to the weavers by paying extra wages.”

He said that in addition to this, every day there were some sudden power failures for one or two hours, adversely affecting production of bedsheets.

He said on usual days in Chennimalai area, about Rs. 2 crore worth of bedsheets and bed spreads were produced every day, but now only about 2 lakh metres of bed sheets were produced, worth Rs. 1 crore, which was about 60 percent of regular production.

Further, he said the prices of yarn used by them had risen by Rs. 20 a bundle containing five kg of yarn.

He said the price of yarn was Rs. 295 a bundle some days ago, but was now Rs. 315 a bundle.

This enhanced price could not be included in the sale of bed sheets, due to competition. Mr. Saminathan said that for the past three months there was virtually no North Indian order for them, but they were expecting that they would get orders only from the first week of July.

He said, “Power cut causes reduction in production, climate causes reduction in upcountry sales.” He made an appeal to the Government to stabilize the yarn price.

He wanted a committee consisting of representatives of spinning mills (yarn producer), powerloom and handloom owners (yarn consumers) and officials having knowledge of the textile industry to be formed.

This committee could meet once in three months and decide the yarn price; whether it could be revised or could remain the same.

Meanwhile, in Erode weekly textile market which assembled on Tuesday afternoon and conducted till Wednesday noon, the sale of bed sheets was very poor.

Merchants said the sale was likely to pick up only after the first week of July, as the weather in North Indian States was hot and no merchant from Kerala visited the market due to fear of chikungunya.

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