Vijayawada: Textile industry in tatters due to Covid downturn

Vijayawada: The second wave of Covid-19 has affected the textile and cloth business in the state with the sales dropping to bare minimum during the lockdown.

Several hundred textile, cloth and readymade traders in the state are in distress due to falling of sales and income. The traders are worried that if the lockdown continues for some more weeks they may not be even in a position to pay the rents, wages and meet other expenses, like electricity bills and taxes.

The second wave of Covid is entirely different from the first one. People are scared to come out of homes as death rate seems to be high. Moreover, the pandemic became airborne and spreading very fast compared to the first wave. In this backdrop, people are not willing to come out of their houses.

The scare is so high that many have put celebrations on hold. Marriages are being differed and where they are taking place the quantum of clothes they buy has drastically come down. Even during Ramzan, the sales were the lowest.

The state has more than 30,000 textile and cloth shops. Apart from Vijayawada, the other prominent centres with more than 10,000 shops and showrooms are Chirala of Prakasam district which is known as mini Bombay, over 1000 shops are in Nellore city and Kavali town of Nellore district.

The textile, cloth and saree business is severely hit in Guntur, Vizag, Kakinada, Rajamahendravaram, Kurnool and other parts of the state.

Thousands of traders from across Andhra Pradesh visit Chirala every day to buy clothes, sarees, dress materials, etc.

The business was affected, said B Rajagopal, a businessman in Chirala. He said Chirala, Epurupalem and Vetapalem are famous for making sarees, dress materials. He said the entire business came to grinding halt for the last two months.

R Vijay Kumar, a textile trader in Nellore, said the traders in Kavali have a turnover of Rs 150 crore in the summer every year. Due to Covid this year, it was less than Rs 15 crore.

Nearly 2000 textile, ready-made and cloth shops are spread over Vijayawada and most of these shops are either small or medium selling ready-made garments, sarees, lungis, towels, bedsheets and a wide variety of other cloth products. The traders are left without any business for nearly three months.

P Satyanarayana, a ready-made textile shop owner in Lenin centre, said the future looks very bleak as traders have no business during the lockdown. He said the traders have just two hours to do business from 9.30 to 11.30 am. He said the traders forced to close down the shops at any cost before 12 noon.

Chillapalli Srinivasa Rao, secretary, Textile Merchants Welfare Association, Vijayawada, said the traders are clueless when Covid pandemic will end. He said the traders, who had taken bank loans, are not able to pay EMIs. He urged the government to give some relief on the loans.

Kotta Anil Kumar, General Secretary, Cloth Merchants Association, Vijayawada, said the textile and cloth merchants have not yet recovered from the loss suffered during the first wave. R Prasad, a trader at the Beasant Road, Vijayawada, said most traders have sacked the workers due to falling of income.