Workers’ exodus hits cloth, transport trade

KANPUR: : The exodus of workers from Gujarat in this festival period is going to hit textile mills, and consequently, cloth production, hard. Factories will be unable to supply the quantity of cloth to wholesalers.

Already, a large number of textile mill and other factory workers have returned to their home state during the past four days. Kanpur is the centre of the cloth wholesale business and it supplies cloth to more than 40 districts of the state and the neighbouring states too. But due to the fall in production this year, the supply of cloth from Gujarat has been affected and it is feared that during the forthcoming festival season, people will not get the desired quantity of cloth, said Satynarain Singhania a member of the Kapra Committee.

UP Motors Transporters’ Association patron Kailash Chandra Sharma said that the exodus of the people of UP and Bihar has also started from Surat. None of the transporters have suspended transportation to Gujarat. Sharma, who operates trucks from Ahmadabad, added that for the past three days, trucks have been waiting to load goods in Ahmadabad and in other districts but minus the stock and the workers, there is little to load.

Bhartiya Vikas Parishad president MC Kushwah said that about 25,000 workers from UP and Bihar working in the textile factories in Gujarat have come back. Production in the factories situated in Gandhinagar, Mehsana, Patan, Ahmadabad and Sabarkantha has stopped completely as there are no workers left in the factories even to load the goods produced.