Karur is one of the hubs for manufacture and export of kitchen and household textiles. The Covid pandemic lockdown across the world has impacted huge blow to the textile industry in Karur, which is bracing for a loss in the last six months.
More than 350 companies operating in Karur alone depending on the industry. Domestic and foreign exports of home-made textiles such as gloves, kitchen towels, curtains and pillowcases in Karur earned about Rs 3,000 crore a year.
Thus, the industry, which has been generating millions of jobs and millions of rupees in revenue, has recently been hit hard. Textile production and exports are facing a severe crisis due to rising raw material prices and container shortages.
The textile industry would start receiving orders few months before every festival. In addition, exporters from Karur will participate and receive orders at the annual Textile Trade Fair in Frankfurt, Germany in January.
In 2019, Christmas orders were completed and shipped by June and July. Production was halted in March due to corona curfew while exporters were engaged in production to complete orders received like this last year. Goods worth many crores could not be sent due to lock down. Thus the exporters could not get the money for the textiles produced.
The industry is now slowly recovering following the curfew. However, there has been a further decline in exports due to rising prices of raw materials, including yarn, and shortage of containers.
Textile production has been severely affected by rising raw material prices. In particular, the rise in prices is due to the direct interest of yarn manufacturers in yarn exports.
Similarly, the availability of containers has also been a problem as India has now reduced imports after the corona damage.
There has been a delay in the delivery of textiles to those who placed the order. As a result, the amount due to the exporters from them is also delayed. This has caused problems in getting new orders. Here the industry provides direct and indirect employment to about 1 lakh people.
The country earns up to crores of rupees in foreign exchange annually through textile exports. Karur textile exporters expect
the government to take appropriate action to control the rise in raw material prices and curb the shortage of containers by imposing restrictions on direct exports of yarn.