Indian textile industry badly hit by COVID-19 pandemic

Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

The initial COVID-19 lockdown and
now, the second wave is affecting the Indian textile industry negatively. Tamil
Nadu had been supplying up to 40% of the yarn produced to the weaving
industries in Maharashtra. However, with the pandemic situation, most of the
migrant workers employed by weaving units are returning home, affecting the
state’s production capacity, thereby impacting Tamil Nadu’s textile industries
too.

Tamil Nadu has only 650,000 power
looms compared to about 1.2 million such units in Maharashtra. Due to the shortage
of workers in Maharashtra, the Tamil Nadu textile industry is expected to face
a hit of 10-20% on its sales in the next couple of months.

The second wave of COVID-19 is adversely
affecting Gujarat’s
textile industries as well. Gujarat has already recorded a 25% decline in the
production capacity in the last 15 to 20 days. According to Ashok Jirawala,
President, Federation of Gujarat Weavers’ Association (FOGWA), the demand from
textile traders itself has gone down and if the situation does not get better
in two weeks, the fabric production will drop by 50%. He also mentioned that
starting April 2021, the Gujarat textile industry has been achieving a
production capacity of about 40 million metres per day compared to 55 million
metres earlier. The production of grey fabrics in Surat alone is said to have dropped
by 10 million metres from 45 million metres to less than 35 million metres a
day.

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