Entrepreneurs come forward for industrial sewing machine's revival

Amar Preet from ‘Virinder Engineer Works’, a local entrepreneur, is out to save the market Ludhiana industrial sewing machines from oblivion.

He is working on the industrial sewing machine model ‘5550’ and hopes to rollout the industrial machines in the market by the year end.

In India, the industrial machines manufactured are heavy and is not self lubricating, while the advantage of model ‘5550’ is that not only it is self lubricating but also has a high stitching speed.

Once the machine is out Amar Preet hopes that many more players from India would start manufacturing the ‘5550 model’ of industrial sewing machine that could once again bring back competition between indigenous industrial machines and imported machines.

According to Amar Preet, the market for industrial sewing machines is mainly dominated by foreign players with few players from India. Ludhiana accounts for 90 per cent of the production for industrial as well as domestic sewing machines.

The domestic use of sewing machines have already registered a steep decline owing to changing lifestyle of the people and industrial market has seen cold response being meted out to the Indian manufacturers.

The reason behind the cold response to Indian sewing machines in the industrial segment was the archaic technology used by the manufacturers, while the technology used by other countries is advanced.

The manufacturing ‘5550’ was not an easy task for Amar Preet who besides manufacturing the body had to outsource the components required. Amar Preet maintains that since not many players in India are manufacturing ‘5550’ model, the parts has to be outsourced from different places.

“Procuring parts from overseas render this project unviable so I decided to import the least number of components while the rest are being procured from domestic market” Amar Preet said.

He, however, feels that once the manufacturing of industrial sewing machines resumes at Ludhiana, not only it would help in reviving the ailing sewing machine industry but could also dominate because of better quality and competitive prices.

Adds Anil Kapoor, president, Sewing Machine Manufacturing Association, Ludhiana, efforts taken by individuals like Amar Preet are praiseworthy but looking at future, the efforts need to be organised.

Kapoor exhorts that individual efforts in reviving the ailing sewing machine industry can’t go a long way and the effort has to be cohesive.

He adds that they have been looking forward for support from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) department to help the sewing machine industry in manufacturing the ‘5550 model’.

If the MSME department supports us, there could be a collective effort by the sewing machine industry to manufacture industrial machines in bulks, which not only would restore competition in the domestic market but also help industry stand on its own feet.