Trade and industry in Tamil Nadu are worried over the strike by lorry owners.

Urging urgent intervention by the Centre, Tirupur Exporters Association members say they have not been able to transport finished garments for shipment.

At a standstill

An industry source said that movement of goods had come to a standstill from this morning.

“We managed to transport goods on tempos till last evening. But this service has since been withdrawn. I will now have to use my car to move the goods,” said the managing director of a spinning mill, preferring anonymity.

Several mills have started to lay off workers, unable to operate the units to their optimal capacity.

“It’s more than a week now and the government has not intervened to resolve the strike. I sent away 200 workers last week. Some more will have to go if the issue is not resolved immediately,” the source said.

Fearing derailment of exports, TEA President Raja M Shanmugham said, “Knitwear exports have been declining since October 2017. It fell by 21 per cent in the second half of the last fiscal compared to the corresponding period of 2016-17. During the first quarter of the current fiscal (2018-19), exports again fell by 21 per cent compared to the corresponding quarter of 2017-18. We are passing through a difficult phase, struggling to survive.”

“The ongoing lorry strike is going to add to our woes as there are over 6,000 MSMEs in the Tirupur cluster engaged in standalone jobs. Stoppage of vehicle movement from the garment unit to job-work units like knitting, dyeing, compacting, printing, embroidery, checking, ironing and packing has already started to impact production,” he said.

And it is not merely about transporting the yarn or finished goods. “We need chemicals for processing and for keeping the effluent treatment plants (ETPs) running. The supply shortfall of essential chemicals for even a day would take us 60 days to rebuild the ETP,” a mill owner said.

Yarn pile-up

Meanwhile, the Southern India Small Spinners Association (SISPA) has said that around 25,000 tonnes of yarn valued at ₹550 crore have not been lifted from production points since July 21.

“While there is pile-up of inventory, we are unable to source raw materials such as cotton and fibre from upcountry markets. We are not in a position to operate units or provide job to workers,” said SK Rengarajan, President, SISPA.

Vegetables/fruits cost more

Prices of fruits and vegetables have started to inch up, observed a buyer at the local vegetable market, emphasising the need for early end to the lorry strike.

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