Karur filament industries in doldrums

High Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) filament manufacturers of Karur are finding themselves in the red as their traditional markets is slowly vanishing.

The textile town hosts end-to-end facilities for extruding fibre from HDPE granules, viewing, knitting of fabrics and converting them into usable products.

Talking to the Business Standard, A R Malaiyappasamy, former MLA and president of Karur HDPE Yarn Manufacturers Association, said there was no unity and professional approach among the entrepreneurs of Karur.

Many manufacturers were underquoting prices and liberalising the terms of business on individual whims and fancies. Besides, frequent power cuts and lack of qualified or trained workforce were other reasons for the decline of the industry in the area, he said.

The town hosts over 75 extruder units and 5,000 knitting looms, generating employment opportunities for over 50,000 people. On a rough estimate, the extruders utilise over 1,200 tonnes of granules procured mostly from Indian Petrochemicals Ltd (IPCL). While the buying price is at Rs 75 per kg, the finished products at the end of a processing chain are sold at Rs 145 "� Rs 150 per kg.

Karur units had excellent markets in the the North and West and hundreds of buyers from all over the country used to throng the town. But Karur is now losing its market hold, and the employment opportunities have come down to 5,000.

While the small and medium entrepreneurs of the town enjoy all market privileges, small operators, despite having a yen for quality control, are receiving poor patronage. The product range from HDPE is wide -- right from mosquito nets, fish-nets, wrapper for poultry, cattle farms to fruit orchards.

The need for a professional approach in marketing has been recognised and the association has taken certain initiatives in this regard.

For example, 2,000 pieces of mosquito-nets have been collected from various manufacturing units and forwarded to the Malaria Control and Research Centre at Rourkela for field tests.

If the test is successful and the nets are patented for public use, Karur units could be the best outsourcing centre for mosquito nets. The association is now relying on Union health minister Ramadoss Anbumani to help generate orders from public hospitals and health centres for mosquito-nets.

Similarly, the association collected 50,000 net wrappers and passed them on to the Karur municipality to be used as net covers on septic tanks.

These wrappers would curtain mosquito breeding to a great extent. If the scheme is a success, the state government could take steps to make it mandatory for all toilet pipe vents to use these net wrappers.

The association had also used its contacts with the Department of horticulture for popularising the use of mega-sized net wrappers in floriculture as well as in fruit orchards.

New entrants in the HDPE business have a scientific approach, but older units who are in the business for decades, are still lagging behind in modernising, added Malaiyappasamy.