The Chennai Silks plans to reopen its textile retail showroom that was destroyed in the fire. According to a spokesperson of the company, the demolition will be completed in three days. The initial estimate is that goods worth ₹200 crore would have been destroyed. However, the exact details would be available only after a couple of days.
The Tirupur-based Chennai Silks Group has appealed to the Government to provide the required approvals at the earliest so that it can reconstruct the showroom soon.
About 1,400 workers who were employed at the showroom will be temporarily placed at its other showrooms. Salary was credited into all their accounts on Thursday.
“We have plans to open about 10 more outlets in Chennai,” the spokesperson said.
The Chennai Silks, which was started more than five decades ago, is today a conglomerate with presence in jewellery, energy, and construction sectors, apart from textiles.
According to information available online, on the textile retail front, the group has 17 outlets in 14 cities, six airport showrooms, and over 30 brands.
Each of the 17 showrooms is more than one lakh sq.ft area. A retail outlet or two is opened almost every year and the Chennai showroom was started in 2001.
Expansion on the retail front gained pace after 2010 and all the showrooms are on own land. The group ventured into e-commerce for online sale of textile products in 2003.
For the family-held group, which was founded by A. Kulandaivel Mudaliar, the companies under its fold include Sri Kumaran Thanga Maligai (jewellery), The Chennai Silks, SCM Garments, SCM Textile Spinners, SCM energy division (wind energy), Sri Nachammal Vidyavani (education), and Teemage Precast (construction).
The fire was noticed by the security by about 4 a.m. and about 14 workers were in the building then. He alerted the managers and the fire service personnel were at the site by 4.15 a.m. However, they wanted to know the exact place from where smoke was emanating as they did not have adequate water supply and till 6 a.m. not much was done to put out the fire, the spokesperson alleged.
All the 14 personnel at the building were rescued. The new building will be constructed as per norms, he said.
The group has textile manufacturing facilities are in the entire value chain from spinning to garmenting. Apart from the retail presence in the domestic market, the Chennai Silks group also exports garments.
The spokesperson added, “We are into several CSR activities. AKVN Charity Hospitals is operated at Avinashi and Clean Today focusses on cleanliness projects across the State.”