More than 12 textile dyeing and printing mills in Surat have shut down as they were unable to maintain due to high costs and short supply of lignite coal and imported coal.
The Russia-Ukraine war and low production from mines in Gujarat are the two major reasons for the current situation of coal. Lignite and imported coal in the boiler generate steam for fixing the colour and chemicals in fabric.
Jitu Vakhariya, President, South Gujarat Textile Processing Association (SGTPA) said that the association has made a request to the GMDC (Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation) authorities to raise supply and reduce the prices of lignite coal.
He further added that fifteen such textile mills have shut down after being sealed by bank authorities as the owners could not pay the loan amount. At the same time, there is no major demand of textile goods in the market too.
Textile industry players are strongly of the opinion that there are lot of challenges in business always but this time, it has become difficult for them to survive.
There is comparatively less demand in the market, recently the Diwali festival sale also has not been good. And in this scenario, prices of lignite, imported coal, colours and chemicals have gone up.
Producing almost 4 crore metres of fabric every day, Surat has around 350 textile dyeing and printing mills.
The price of lignite from Rajpardi was Rs. 2,718 per tonne on 16th March 2021, which now is Rs. 3,842 per tonne. At the same time, the lignite price of Tadkeshwar mines has gone up from Rs. 2,137 per tonne to Rs. 5,503 per tonne.
