RAJKOT: This quiet little hamlet which weighs everything that’s sold, was literally the country’s ‘weight watchers’ once. However, the pressure of changing times have weighed down heavily upon Savarkundla’s weighing scales units and sales have dropped not only by 40%, but the sector fears extinction at this rate.
Based in Amreli district, it is a hub of every kind of manual weighing scales of all measures and sizes. But the age of electronics has given it a rough time for the last few years with stiff competition. Electronic scales have pushed down the demand for manual scales by occupying almost 60% of the Indian domestic market.
Almost 600 small and medium scale factories thrive in this small town of 1 lakh people, employing 30,000 people in this industry. Not to be outdone, manufacturers in Savarkundla too turned to electronic scales making but found they can’t compete with bigger cities like Delhi, Kolkata in prices.
Savarkundla currently produces 3,000 electronic scales and 10,000 manual scales daily. While prices of manual scales start at Rs 600, electronic scales start from Rs 2,000 onwards. In fact, this price difference is still keeping demand for manual scales alive in a few states like UP, West Bengal, Odisha, and north-eastern states.
What’s more, scales from Savarkundla also bring in precious dollars from African and Gulf countries!
Kanu Dodiya, a leading manufacturer of Savarkundla told TOI, “Raw materials like load cells, motherboard, display etc come from China, and we only have to assemble electronic scales. So, it’s easy to make and doesn’t require special skills, unlike the manual scales. The whole country is chock-a-block with electronic scales manufacturers, which has killed the demand for our traditional scales by 40%.”
An exporter of the manual scales, Nikul Chudasama said, “China is the biggest exporter of weighing scales in the world. Savarkundla too can give China a run for its money provided the government gives us tax benefits, export incentives and ease in ‘inspector raj’.”
Chudasama further said that the manufacturers are harassed by the weights and measures department which keeps asking for the same documents at every renewal and the government also needs to ease the process of stamping on the machines.