Ahmedabad Textile Process Houses Extend Diwali Holidays

Several Ahmedabad based textile process houses have decided to extend Diwali holidays to a fortnight as against the 3-5 holidays in previous years.

Most of these fabric printing or dyeing factories were running at half of their production capacities in a week before Diwali due to low orders in hand, and hence the decision to extend the holidays.

“The process houses are presently facing challenges of traders holding very high inventories and sluggish demand. Last year too, post-Diwali, these factories were closed for around 10 days,” ToI reported.

“Overall, the textile industry has been passing through a tough period over the past 18 months,” Naresh Sharma, former Vice-President of Ahmedabad Textile Processors’ Association (ATPA) said.

“There was good demand a month prior to Diwali, but orders have fallen sharply since the last 30 days,” he added.

“Powerlooms in South India have shutdown since November 6, due to weak demand,” Bharat Chhajer, former Chairman of Powerloom Development and Export Promotion Council (PDEXCIL) also said.

“Almost 70 percent of grey fabric from South India is processed in Ahmedabad, so, the shutting down of these powerlooms has negatively affected process houses in the city,” Chajjer too added.

“Additionally, the high volume of import of fabric from China has contributed to slowdown in orders in the domestic market,” he observed.

Areas in and surrounding Narol area in Ahmedabad is one of the biggest cotton textile processing hubs in India, which has 138 fabric processing units that collectively process around 2.8 billion metres of fabric annually.