SIMA appeals for flexible labour policy

The Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) has urged the central government to speed up the labour reforms and come out with a flexible labour policy for the textile industry.

Addressing a press conference here, S V Arumugam, chairman of the association, said, "A flexible labour policy will not only help the mills in consolidating the existing fragmented production facilities but will also encourage the industry to go in for large scale investments."

Although the State government has come out with a few incentives and schemes attracting large scale investments to the tune of Rs 300 crore and above, the entrepreneurs are still worried about rigid labour laws and poor infrastructure facilities and this halts further investment, he added.

While highlighting the observations made by the SIMA technical delegation that visited China during November, 2005, Arumugam said that the study covered five leading spinning machinery manufacturers apart from the pilot mill of China Texmatech Company Limited (CTMTC) which has around 25,000 spindles.

The delegation also observed that the spinning mills in China normally run the machine at 30 per cent lesser speed compared to Indian mills and therefore they design certain components for slow speeds which can be retrofitted with Europe or Japan made components.

Commenting on the demand-supply gap in the textile machineries, Arumugam said that the demand is double the supply gap in India with a requirement of 4 million spindles a year.

Moreover, the indigenous suppliers take around two to three years to fulfill the orders, whereas Chinese suppliers take a mere six months time to deliver the machineries. "Delivery on time is the main factor which makes us to look for Chinese suppliers," he said.

The delegation had insisted on the Chinese textile machinery suppliers to come out with a uniform pricing policy so as to enable the textile mills in India to firm up their orders.

Besides, the delegation also had invited Chinese suppliers to set up their service centres and spares warehouses of all critical components so that the mills in the region can make use of them, he added.