The Hindu Business Line : Salem textile producers float new trade body

THE Salem-based textile manufacturers have taken a leaf out of the book of Tirupur knitwear exporters in the field of readymade knitted garment exports.

Members of the Salem cotton textile producers, predominantly belonging to the powerloom-based yarn dyed fabric producers who largely supply their merchandise to the merchant-exporters, have floated a new forum, the Salem Exporters Association (SEA), modelling it after the Tirupur Exporters Association.

The textile producers from Salem got their association registered last week. Though the initial membership of the new trade body is said to be around 50 or so, SEA officials say they would look beyond the numbers, as the key objective of starting SEA is to give an edifice to the vibrant textile manufacturing community in Salem region which has so far failed to project a concrete image for the region's strong `yarn dyed' fabric production.

This has been so despite the region supplying `yarn dyed' fabrics to merchant exporters of Delhi and Ahmedabad worth Rs 3,000 crore or so per annum, said Mr S.R. Venugopal, President of SEA.

"How to increase the direct export output from Salem has been one of the key concerns of the SEA members which formed the basis for starting this forum as at present hardly 10 per cent of the estimated Rs 3,000 crore worth of the `yarn dyed' fabrics produced from the Salem belt is involved in direct shipments made out of Salem based producers themselves," said Mr Venugopal.

"To boost the confidence of the Salem textile producers in their task of increasing direct fabric exports, the SEA members felt the need for specific works-out that would bring down their manufacturing cost. A lower production cost is a must to remain cost competitive in today's textile marketing and to achieve this, the SEA has proposed a wind energy project as a common facility basis for the Salem fabric exporters," Mr Venugopal told Business Line.

The association, which has prepared the Rs 20-crore wind energy project to generate five MW power, is to present the project for the Tamil Nadu Government's approval in a day or two as this project is being planned as part of a hi-tech weaving park for the Salem weaving clusters to be funded under the Central Government's Hi-Tech Weaving Park projects.

"We are meeting in a day or two with the Tamil Nadu Industries Secretary when the proposal would be formally made to the State Government for the necessary approval," he said.

The association, which is closely interacting with the Textile Committee of the Government of India in the textile cluster development programme, has also recently floated a raw material consortium company called the Salem Dyers Consortium Pvt Ltd to procure the textile dye-stuffs consumed by the Salem weavers under the common pool of arrangement at competitive prices directly from the dye manufacturing companies.

"This way we found that we could get the quality dye-stuff at a price which is some 30 per cent lower than what we used to buy earlier individually," said Mr Venugopal.