Chinese machines give embroidery business a boost

With the advent of cheap Chinese machines, small investors have entered the embroidery business, turning it fast into a cottage industry.

In Amritsar, the growing demand for embroidered ladies' apparel has resulted in an addition of about 15 imported embroidery machines every month. All this has revived hopes for the sagging cloth industry.

DD Textile Private Ltd imported a Schiffli machine worth Rs 2.5 crore from Saurer Hamel Ltd of Switzerland in 1997 for processing embroidered cloth meant for export.

Karan Verma, an executive of DD Textile, said the firm had to switch to embroidery on suits and dupattas.

From one imported embroidery machine in 1997, Amritsar now has about 100 such machines and over 3,000 multihead embroidery machines.

The year 2001 saw the coming of new multi-head machines, imported from Germany, Japan and South Korea, and they cost around Rs 60 lakh each.

The Swiss machine is used for producing bulk material of a pattern as it produces a single-coloured 1,000 metre piece of cloth per day. The multi-head machine has the ability to manufacture cloth in nine different colours with a speed of about 100 metres a day.

Of late the Chinese have flooded the Indian market with their cheaper machines which cost between Rs 500,000 and Rs 1,300,000 apiece. The affordable cost and good returns have lured numerous small-time investors to take part in this.

However, this has adversely affected the cottage embroidery profession. The small embroidery shops in the city were a source of livelihood for thousands of artisans. These artisans are now forced to switch to other trades.