TN spinning mills to stop production: Tough times ahead for Kerala handloom sector

Kochi: The handloom sector finds itself in a crisis situation, as several spinning mills in Tamil Nadu have stopped production and sale of cotton yarn. It should be noted that 80 percent of the cotton yarn used by weavers in Kerala comes from Tamil Nadu. The shortage of yarn will adversely impact handloom production in the state. 

Due to a shortage in the availability of cotton and its skyrocketing prices, small-scale spinning mills in Tamil Nadu decided to shut down production and sales of cotton indefinitely. One bundle of cotton costs around Rs 56,000. However, the spinning mills hardly receive any profits from selling cotton yarn. As a result, they have been running in losses for the past 11 months. The price of raw materials and the maintenance charge of the mills constitute 50-70 percent of the total production cost.

Usually, handloom products register maximum sales in Kerala during the Onam season. The current crisis is giving sleepless nights to the weavers/handloom societies across the state. The spinning mills in Kerala only produce cotton yarn used for the production of handloom school uniforms which are distributed for free by the government. There are 19 spinning mills in Kerala across the private, public, and cooperative sectors. A majority of these mills are running at losses as well.

Will the shortage affect the garment industry?

The garment and apparel industries in Kerala usually record the highest sales during the Onam-Ramadan season. Garments/apparel worth over Rs 3,500 crores are sold during the season. But a majority of these garments (worth over Rs 1,500 crores) are imported to Kerala from neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. Hence the crisis in the handloom sector need not necessarily have a telling effect on the garment sales in the state.