Textile units to down shutters from today

About 400 textile processing units in the country's biggest man-made textile industry will down their shutters for an indefinite period from Friday to protest the price hike announced by theGujarat Gas Company Limited (GGCL). 

The South Gujarat Textile Processors Association (SGTPA) gave the indefinite strike call after the talks with the top management of the GGCL over the rollback in the prices of natural gas supplied to the processing units failed on Thursday. 

Office-bearers of SGTPA have decided to approach the Central government with a demand to include the textile industry in the priority sector after agriculture and fertilizer industries and thereby fixing an assured quota of one million standard cubic meter per day (mscmd) natural gas from the Panna-Mukta-Tapti (PMT) pipeline, which the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) distribute to the supplier companies like GGCL. 

The indefinite strike by the processing units is all set to hit the city's textile sector hard in the coming days. As per an estimate, about 4 crore metres of cloth is dyed and processed by the textile processing units per day worth Rs100 crore. The closure of the processing units for an indefinite period will paralyze the city's textile sector. 

Meanwhile, the SGTPA office-bearers said the 1.5 lakh textile workers employed in the 400 processing units have supported the strike call. However, the textile processors will continue paying minimum wage payments to the workers supporting the strike call. 

"We do not want the poor workers to suffer due to the indefinite strike," said Pramod Choudhary, president of SGTPA. 

Choudhary said the Federation of Surat Textile Traders Association (FOSTTA) and the powerloom weavers in the city have supported the indefinite strike announced by the textile processors. 

Vinod Agarwal, vice-president of SGTPA, said, "The net profit of Gujarat Gas Company has increased three-fold from Rs 88 crore in 2006 to Rs 258 crore in 2010. The huge profits have been earned by charging hefty prices for the natural gas to both the domestic, CNG and the industrial users." 

Against the allegations made by the SGTPA regarding huge profit earned by GGCL since 2006, official sources said the company has been consistently reinvesting major chunk of its profit in the market to maintain the uninterrupted supply, safety and asset integrity of the network. The same investment paid rich dividend during the devastating floods in 2006 when the supply of piped gas to the domestic users was continued.

Times Of India