COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Stalemate over wage issue keeps Punjab's powerloom sector in suspended animation

An ongoing strike, coupled with the Punjab government's failure to grant certain tax concessions, has crippled the local powerloom industry which is the second largest in the country.

As the agitation, demanding a hike in pay-scales, entered the fourth week today, the one lakh-strong labour force working in over 30,000 powerloom units in the city sees no end to the crisis.

The units manufacture synthetics, art silk and woolen fabrics including suitings of various blends.

Even as the agitationists are adamant on their demand for a seven to nine per cent increase in wages, their employers continue to respond with an emphatic ''no''.

Worried over ''depressed'' markets and ''sagging'' enthusiasm among customers, the local industrial association of the powerloom sector reiterated its stance that conceding the workers' demands is ''out of question at this juncture''.

Processed textile stocks worth Rs 500 million are currently lying piled up in the units, an association spokesman claimed. ''A wage hike at this hour is something unthinkable.''

Unscrupulous functioning of some of the units is another factor which adds to the already existing hitches. Finding that some local businessmen fake seals of highly reputed brands on their products, police conducted a raid last month.

Finished fabrics running into tens of thousands of metres were seized from some premises due to the action following complaints from top textile houses.

The spokesman lamented that the local textile committee under the textiles ministry has so far failed to check this duplication.

The powerloom sector has been demanding lifting of the four per cent tax being levied by the state government on processed goods. Although the government has agreed ''in principle'' to this demand, no steps have been taken for its implementation, the spokesman pointed out.

The city which developed as an important textile centre in the 1930s has witnessed limited technnological upgradation during the past six decades. This has led to the quality of the products lacking a match with those manufactured with sophisticated knowhow. A sad fallout of the circumstances is the closure of a number of such powerloom units during the past few years in the city.

UNI