The COVID-19 crisis is set to have a huge impact on small labour-intensive textile units, mostly dependent on migrant workforce. While the focus around the world right now is on food, medicine and protective gear, the pandemic has posed a serious threat to all the sectors of the economy. Economies everywhere have been predicted to hit rock bottom. The Indian textile industry faces some grave challenges: from maintaining production and addressing the need for protective clothing to coping up with the deficit due to lockdown and retain migrant labourers.
Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the hubs of textile manufacturing in India, are amongst the worst hit states by the pandemic. The industry is mostly dependent on migrant workforce from Bihar, Jharkhand Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. Due to the seriousness of the pandemic, the textile units were shut in March. The absence of wages and imminent risk to life made the migrant labourers go back to their respective native places.
As reported by the scientists and doctors, the pandemic might last longer than expected and that again may pose a challenge to small textile units as migrant labourers may not return until safety can be assured to them. Unlike big companies, these smaller units are operated either manually or semi-automatically. Majority of these textile processing units function on a seasonal basis based on the availability of raw material and the demand for products. The machines installed in these units are ill spaced; hence violate the standard six-feet social distancing norm between workers. These are some of the issues that may affect the production and economic state of the small textile units:
Availability of raw material: Due to the pandemic, agriculture has also suffered. With more emphasis on food crops, cash crops are being sidelined due to decreasing demand. This would lead to lower availability of raw materials like cotton and silk.
Transportation: Transportation is the spine of any supply chain, be it raw material or finished goods. Due to the long duration of the lockdown, transportation has severely suffered, and that has affected both established as well as small businesses.
Cash flow: Big companies have larger turnover and profits, and so, they have a continuous cash flow unlike smaller textile units, which are more precarious.
Availability of labour: Small textile units mostly rely on manual operation. Due to the pandemic and the lockdown, migrant labourers have moved back to their native places and are less likely to return soon to work.
