The Hindu Business Line : Chikungunya takes its toll on coir yarn supplies

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Chikungunya takes its toll on coir yarn supplies

THIN ATTENDANCE

K.K.Mustafah

Sick time: Workers at a factory in Alappuzha. —

G.K. Nair

Kochi, Sept. 17

Three months after the outbreak of chikungunya in the coastal belt of Alappuzha and Kollam districts of Kerala, the reality of the viral fever is coming home to roost. These belts, where the coir industry is concentrated, have been badly hit due to thin attendance and this, in turn, affecting several units in the public and private sector.

An estimated 50 per cent of the workers have not reported for work, especially in the coir twisting sector, and as a result, supply of coir yarn to the manufacturing units has been affected during the last two months, Mr S.M. Sheriff, a small unit owner in Alappuzha told Business Line.

The raw material, coir yarn, is provided by suppliers located in the hamlets in the coastal stretch in Alappuzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram. The supply has shrunk by 50 per cent and “we are managing with the inventory we are holding with the hope that the situation would improve in the coming days”.

Not surprisingly, coir yarn prices have spurted between 7 per cent and 19 per cent in the last month or so. For example, coir rope prices have increased to Rs 1,800 a quintal from Rs 1,670 a month ago.

According to Mr S. Ratnakumaran, Managing Director of state-owned Foam Mattings (India) Ltd, Alappuzha, in certain sections of the factory 50 per cent of the workers have not reported for duty due to the fever.

Normally, it takes between three and six months for someone affected by chikungunya to recover fully.

As a result, the output in one of the important sections has substantially dropped making it difficult to continue the production operations and leading to a cut in end product output, he said.

However, exporters say the development has not affected their production and delivery schedules so far as they had bought fibre and coir yarn from other sources in the State and outside.

Therefore, they said, “we hadn’t incurred any loss so far”.

In the rubber plantations 50 per cent of the tappers have not attended work for several weeks and now 20 to 30 per cent are yet to report for work.

This has led to a drop of 50,000 tonnes of natural rubber production involving a loss of around Rs 500 crore, Mr J.K. Thomas, President, Upasi, told Business Line.

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