Sewing machine industry in tattersas costs soar

The sewing machine industry in Ludhiana, comprising 400-odd tiny small units, and which already was in a shambles, has been severely hit by rising steel prices.

Dealers say the sewing machine industry is dying a slow death and increase in steel prices may act as catalyst for its complete destruction.

Ludhiana produces 90 per cent of the total sewing machines manufactured in India.

Speaking to Business Standard Virender Rakheja, president, Sewing Machine Dealers and Assemblers Association, Ludhiana, said currently the sewing industry market in India was worth Rs 800-1,000 crore with 10,000 units of sewing machines being manufactured daily in Ludhiana alone by around 400 manufacturing units.

Already, Chinese machines have captured a major share of the sewing machines in the industrial market (30-35 per cent) and majority of dealers in Ludhiana are trying to meet the domestic needs.

However, with the domestic demand for sewing machines on the decline owing to changing lifestyles and with rising input costs, the industry is really in a catch-22 situation.

Puran Prakash Jham, senior vice-president of the Association said that already the sewing machine industry was facing hardships and rising steel prices were really hurting it.

He said the cost of cast iron, used as raw material in sewing machines, had risen to Rs 32,000 per metric tonne from Rs 26,000 per metric tonne two years back.

As the steel prices rose abruptly the machine dealers were forced to hike their machine costs with prices of domestic machines going up by Rs 150 and that of industrial machines by Rs 250.

The price rise in sewing machines may be another major blow for domestic sewing industry, as foreign companies may eye this market also in near future.

A number of dealers, however, brush aside these apprehensions saying that the profit margin in domestic machines is less as compared to the margin in industrial machines.

The dealers association has demand that the government should immediately take step to monitor arbitrary hikes in steel prices.

Also among other demands the association is urging for setting up of a sewing machine park in Ludhiana.

"The government has been approached on numerous occasions for allocation of land to set up a sewing machine park to come up but nothing has been finalised as of now," says Rakheja.

The requirement of land would be around 50 acres and about 100 units would come up in the park. The park would be an joint venture of Sewing machine Dealers Association Ludhiana, Dealers Association Ludhiana, Machine and Manufacturing Association Ludhiana and the government.