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More mill workers being thrown out of jobs

At a time when the “feel good factor” is doing the rounds, particularly in the high society, more and more textile mill workers continue to be thrown out of jobs as textile mills continue to close down at a rate of five to six every month. Of course, the Planning Commission has recently claimed that the creation of 84 lakh jobs in each of the last three years, but these unfortunate mill hands are unable to find any job whatsoever.

When a textile mill suddenly closes down, its workers continue to go to their usual place of work for a few days, only to return home disappointed on finding the mill gates closed. After some days, they stop doing so, they try to pick up some casual work here and here but their standard of living as also that of their dependents start deteriorating. There cannot be any feel good factor for the swelling ranks of these jobless mill workers who are left to their miserable plight.

If one goes by official statistics, in 1997-98 there were about 220 closed textile mills in the country. In the subsequent five years, the number of closed textile mills more than doubled, as additional 263 textile mills rolled down their shutters throwing out their employees on the road. The number of idle textile mills thus soared to 483 by the end, of 2002-03.

This mean that during this five years period, textile mills have continued to close down at the rate of 52.6 every year, or one every week.

Even during the first eight months of 2003-04 more textile mills have closed down, rendering more workers jobless. During the brief period of just eight months 60 additional textile mills have closed their gates, indicating the closure rate of 7.5 per month. In other words, the rate of mill closure seems to have gone up during the period. Additional 27,000 mill hands have been thus rendered jobless during the period.

It is generally believed that no large scale industrial unit can be closed down without prior permission of the authorities concerned, but the fact remains that large scale textile mills are closing down at the rate of six or seven per month. No one knows what the authorities are doing to implement such regulations.

The rapid rise in unemployment in the textile industry can be seen from the fact that in 1997-98 about 2.60 lakh mill workers were jobless as 220 textile mills were closed at that time. In the subsequent five years, the ranks of jobless mill hands soared by 50 per cent to 3.90 lakh. In the first eight months of 2003-04, additional 27,000 mill workers have been rendered jobless on account of the closure of their textile units. Thus the number of jobless mill workers has swelled to 4.20 lakh. The is nobody to provide them alternative job.

Assuming that each mill worker might be having an average four dependents, nearly 20 lakh people are hit as a result of the closure of these textile mills. And no one can say at this stage that there will be no further job losses in this sector. In some of the western countries as soon a person loses his job, he might be entitled to a dole from the state.

No such system exists here. Consequently, when any employee loses his job, he has no where to go. Whenever some casual work is available, he may have to rest satisfied with it. The standard of living of such unemployed worker as also that of their dependents suffer in the absence of any welfare scheme to help them during their unemployment.

Once Mumbai and Ahmedabad were the thriving textile centres in the country. They have now become the graveyards of textile mills. As much as once a textile mill closes down, there are virtually no effort to revive it. Some of the textile units belonging to well known industrial houses are also lying closed at present. These include Bradbury Mills, Mukesh Textile Mills, Shree Nivas Cotton Mills, Kohinoor Mills, Khatau Mills, Matulya Mills, Victoria Mills, Swan Mills, Kamala Mills, Swadeshi Mills, Piramal Mills, Standard Industries, United India Mills and Western India. A couple of textile mills are, moreover, out of operation at present.

Textile mill lands in big cities like Mumbai used to remain humming with with activity through out the day and night. They look deserted at present.

Every industrial unit requires continuous maintenance and upgradation in days of increasing competition. Most of the textile units did not care for its continuous modernisation during the period of its prosperity and now it cannot do so as it has fallen on difficult days. One can therefore expect only more closures and more job losses in this industry. At the end of 2004, the present restrictions of international textile trade will come to an end and textiles will be moving more freely across international borders thereafter. This will be a period of opportunities and challenges for the global textile industry. Those textile mills which are efficiently modernised to meet these challenges will survive.

Others might be forced to close down. Keeping this factor in mind, the textile industry in China has been modernising itself at breakneck pace. But there is no such activity in the Indian competition even in the internal market from the likely increase in imports. When our textile mill workers will experience the feel good factor, no one can say at present.

- M D Dewani