Malerkotla, November 10
Arshad Khan looks on disdainfully as he offers tea to the few customers at a tea stall near Kamal Cinema here. The 36-year-old does not enjoy his new job of a helper at a tea stall. But he has little choice, after the badge-making unit where he worked for the past 25 years, was forced to downsize staff and shunt out embroidery karigars like him. “I tried to get a job in another badge-making unit, but they too were hit after export orders started dwindling last year. Since the situation is unlikely to improve in the near future, I had to make a choice between taking up this job at the tea stall or as a delivery boy at one of the daily needs store,” he says.
Arshad is not the only one in this badge and trophy making capital of the world, who has lost his job. Rough guesstimates put the number of labour lay-offs from this cottage industry to almost 200, ever since the global meltdown led to the decline in export orders. The number is huge, considering the fact that almost 2,000 people in this small town are involved in making badges, caps and flags.
These unemployed karigars can now be seen all over near Kamal Cinema and Sirhindi Gate area here, which till a few months ago was home to about 50-odd units manufacturing these badges and flags. Now, a few of smaller shops have temporarily closed down for want of work. But the worst hit have been embroidery artistes who operate from home and were given all additional job work by these units. Since work is not trickling in, these people have been completely left in the lurch.
Mohammad Yaseem, who along with his younger brother, was getting badge embroidery work from one of the two export houses in the town, too, have now started out as construction labourers. “Ever since we remember, we were taught embroidery by our father. This is the only work we knew and it got us good income over the years. But since November 2008, we are seeing the worst phase ever,” he rues.
Fashioning the arms and pockets of coats, caps and embroidering flags (including car flags and tee-flags) brought this small town into the limelight. Over the years, the
badges and flags made here for educational institutions, armed forces and police have found a market in the USA, UK, Europe, Africa and West and South East Asia.
Since most of the units here are actually doing contract work for export houses in Delhi and Meerut, the latter have always got the real moolah. “But with recession taking its toll, export orders here have declined by almost 75 per cent, leading to a 50 per cent fall in the turnover. Since most of the badge-making units employ labour on contract, they have been forced to lay off people as there is little work,” says Khalid, proprietor of Shaheen Embroideries, one of the export houses here.
Agrees Altaf Rawat, who runs Rawat Enterprises here: “The situation is such that we get one order a month, and for the next two months there are no orders. While the bigger units here are now trying to get some orders from the domestic fashion industry to stay afloat, the smaller ones, who were dependent on exporters in Delhi and Meerut, are facing the worst ever crisis”.
