Garment units at Tirupur, which do business worth Rs 50,000 crore a year, are not likely to start production either today or tomorrow, as the district administration is yet to give them permission to do so.
The district administration has said factories in rural areas can apply for permission formally and start working as per the Tamil Nadu Government guidelines.
Factories inside corporation limit have to apply online. The application will be scrutinised by the designated officer, following which the concerned factory will be inspected to ensure all the Covid guidelines are being followed. It is only after this that permission will be granted.
Since the portal is being updated to add garment factory details, the industry needs to wait for a while. Meanwhile applications giving directly are being considered.
Permission will be granted only for exporting units, buying offices, export offices and export-related job work units.
Nearly half the Rs 50,000 crore generated by the industry every year comes from exports. The Tirupur garment ecosystem employees 500,000-600,000 people of which 170,000 are migrants largely from Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other states.
On Monday, the District COllector held a video conference with the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and it was decided that Tirupur units would be allowed to operate with 50 per cent of the workforce. However, exporting units and sampling units would be permitted to operate with only 30 per cent strength inside the corporation.
The collector invited all association presidents for the meeting today and held discussions measures to make the entire ecosystem commence production.
Sources who attended the meeting said that district administration needs some time to understand the process sequence. That said it would assess whether or not an operation is directly related to exports before giving the go-ahead.