Readymade garments body calls for biggest ever silent protest across India

Against 10% excise duty hike announced in Budget

The Federation of Readymade Garments & Hosiery Association of India has called a nation wide silent protest on 14th & 15th March’11 (Monday & Tuesday) against the 10% excise duty on apparels, hosieries and made-ups announced by the Finance Minister for the Union Budget 2011-2012. The protest will witness participation from textile dominated regions like; Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Ahemdabad, Indore, Bangalore & Ludhiana and other minor centres including; Varanasi, Kanpur, Saharanpur, Bellary and Tirupur are fully supporting the protest.

The protest will seek participation of about 10 lakh people from about 3, 00,000 units across India. The entire industry plans to remain shut for the 2 days (14th & 15th March); thus incurring a loss of Rs 250 crore a day.

The industry which employs no less than 50 million people directly or indirectly have made representations in person, to the important decision makers of the country. Business has been impacted since the last 12 days and many large retailers intend to increase prices by 10-20% to cover the excise impact. The industry has come to a standstill post the announcement of the excise duty imposition.

After agriculture, textile industry is the largest employer in the country. It provides livelihood to 8% of the population and more than 40% of the workforce is woman. The move will directly impact them. In the last one year raw cotton prices have gone up by 150%, yarn by 100% and other inputs like elastic, sewing thread, labor etc have all spiraled up increasing the prices of readymade garments, hosiery goods and made-ups by 30-50%, thus putting immense pressure on the industry. The position has been further aggravated by the mandatory imposition of excise duty.

“The rise in input costs such as cotton and yarn prices has impacted the apparel and garment industry already; retail prices already up by 25-40%. Now, the additional imposition of 10% excise duty on branded garments has come as a shock and is surely a dampener for us. There is negative sentiment throughout the industry. The Government which has come to power on the aam admi plank can’t make ‘kapda’ unaffordable to the aam admi. This will further contribute to the inflationary pressure. We are already absorbing the huge price increase in yarn and cotton. We will have no other alternative but to pass it on to the consumer. We, as an industry, would like that pre budget Status Quo shall be maintained with no Excise Duty," said Raj Dugar, Secretary, Eastern India Garments Manufacturer & Exporters Association.