Punjab leather industry faces a shortage of hides

Due to social and political pressure, the leather industry in Punjab is facing a shortage of quality hide though Punjab has the highest number of cattle after Uttar Pradesh.

Ironically, with just one organised slaughterhouse in operation, at Derrabassi, a large number of animals are taken to Uttar Pradesh and Delhi for slaughter.

Since the slaughter of cattle and buffaloes is banned in the state, most of the hides and skins come from carcasses of animals that die of old age or other ailments. Apart from this, the leather is sometimes of poor quality because of unprofessional flaying (skinning).

"The past 10 years have seen a marked decline in the quality and quantity of hides and skins. More than 75 per cent of the raw material deserves to be rejected, though the defects could be easily overcome," said Ashok Sharma, member of the Council of Leather Exports (CLE), Jalandhar.

Moreover, the Green Revolution had resulted in farming getting completely mechanised and animal-rearing had been limited to milch cattle, he added.

Sharma said the council had recommended to the Council of Leather Research of India to undertake pilot projects with the help of the central government to encourage large farms of cattle and to open large slaughter houses in each district.

He said manually flaying (skinning) animals was responsible for the poor quality of hides.

When contacted, Parveen Kumar, president of the Punjab Leather Federation, Jalandhar, said, "With the state government not willing to set up another treatment plant at the leather complex in Kapurthala, a large number of industrialists have stayed away from setting up units here"

He said the industry was not just operating under difficult circumstances but had been able to put up a fairly good performance all along.

This industry exported goods worth Rs 300 crore in 2004-05, which may be meagre in comparison with the global market, but is a marked improvement over the Rs 130 crore figure of 2003.

Contrary to the prevailing trends, where Chinese goods are being dumped in Indian markets, leather goods had not only confirmed a strong presence in China but also recorded an export growth of more than 100 per cent in 2004-05, Sharma added.