India’s biggest footwear industry reluctant to resume operation in Bahadurgarh
Ravinder Saini
Tribune News Service
Jhajjar, April 23
Industries at India’s biggest footwear park in Bahadurgarh town here, where more than 800 small, medium, and large scale units are operated, are unwilling to resume production despite some relaxation in the restrictions.
The unit owners say many conditions imposed by the government to begin the operations are not favourable. Even, these would also promote ‘inspector raj’. Besides, availability of workers and transportation of products are also major challenges before the footwear manufacturers amid the prevailing situation.
“Multiple reasons have forced the footwear manufacturers not to resume operations. First, they are afraid of an FIR in case any worker gets infected. Another condition of using 33% of total workers is not feasible as no footwear unit can operate without full strength,” said Raj Kumar Gupta, president, Footwear Park Association, Bahadurgarh.
He said transportation was another issue in a situation when Delhi had been declared as red zone and private vehicles had been barred to curb community transmission.
“Local footwear units are fully dependent on Delhi-based transporters for the supply of products across the nation. Moreover, the government has not yet resolved our major concern of paying wages to the labourers for the lockdown period,” he added.
Narendra Chikkara, senior vice-president of the association, said it’s pointless to begin manufacturing without the opening of wholesale and retail markets as units do not have enough space to stock further, hence we had decided to wait for the lifting of lockdown. “Also, workers will have to be called from Delhi whereas cross-border travelling is prohibited amid lockdown. Raw materials have also been brought here from Delhi.”
He said the annual turnover of Bahadurgarh Footwear Park was over Rs10,000 crore and footwear worth Rs2,000 crore was exported to the UAE, Oman, South Africa and several Asian nations every year.
