While in the recent years, the Left Front government has highlighted many of its achievements like empowerment of the poor and the tribals, success of self-help groups, agriculture and so on through advertisements, not once Matiabruz figured in that. The reason is not hard to find. The Left Front government has not done much for this industry. The industry, which basically caters to the low-end market of the country, has developed with the sweat of cheap labour and traditional skill. The traders and the workers, mostly from Muslim community, are tight-lipped when the discussion hovers around the role of the government.
Since the business has been built on minimum margin of profit, most of the traders are just able to eke out their livelihood. Consistent with the status of the majority of the Muslims in West Bengal, most of the manufacturers-traders and workers alike are illiterate and socially backward.
Most of them are hesitant about modernising their manufacturing process. "A few among us have introduced Japanese and Chinese-made automated stitching machines. But most of us are afraid of abandoning our traditional way of functioning," explains Alamgir Fakir, secretary of Bangla Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Traders Association. A good portion of the manufacturing is outsourced to those who work from their home and all family members take part in the job that suits them to keep the cost of operation low.
But they have come to know that similar cheap manufacturing facilities are being developed in other parts of the country. That worries them. "We know that we need to go for modernisation. But we are mostly illiterate. So, we hesitate," comments Sheikh Badruzzah, another trader. The export market is looking up, but they are unable to take advantage of that. According to Alamgir Fakir, some middlemen have started exporting Metiabruz garments to the Gulf countries. But traders do not have any clue about how to go about that. "I guess a lot of paper works are needed for that and we are not capable of doing that," said Fakir.
The same paper works come as a stumbling block for the manufacturers here when they approach the banks for credit. Very few among us get bank loan.
Almost the entire industry is based on the traditional credit system where the creditors offer raw material on short-term loan. Unlike other small scale industries where seed money or a portion of the loan amount is provided by the state government as incentive, here nobody could recall of having heard such thing.
