Tiruppur (Tamil Nadu): It was a job in the booming textile industry that made 50-year-old Velliayangiri sell his agricultural land in south Tamil Nadu and move with his family to the textile town of Tiruppur.
Over the last five years, textile units here grew by over 300 per cent and filling the demand for labour were thousands of migrant labourers like Velllayangiri. But now the boom's come to an end and he has lost his job.
"They didn't even give us notice. Suddenly they just told us things are not looking good and they will call us back when they needs us,” he says.
Hundreds like him are already jobless and the numbers are constantly on the rise. The global recession means that textile units which were exporting close to Rs 8,000 crore worth of material a year are now facing a severe drop in orders.
The end result is small units being shut down and the larger ones cutting down on production and man power
"Sep-Oct-Nov orders are very less. Most exporters say it's 25-30 per cent less. Performance this year is down about eight per cent. Last year it was Rs 5,350 cr. This year it's Rs 5,010 cr. If the trend continues, we will have to layoff our workers,” says President, Tiruppur Exporters association, A.Sakthivel.
Tamil Nadu is facing it's worst ever power crisis in decades and it's had an impact on not just textiles but across other industries as well. Manufacturing units like these in Chennai are cutting down on shifts to reduce power consumptions.
They can't afford captive power generation like big plants and say if things don't get better, they will soon have to lay off workers
“See, I cannot afford captive power the cost of production goes very high for small units and so our only option is to either tell our workers that there will be no over time and if it gets worse we will have to lay off people,” says member, Corrogative Boxes Association, Dilip Saboo.
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