Punjab farmers' stir hits Himachal's BBN industry hard

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, November 2

The disruption of rail traffic by Punjab’s farmers, who are agitating against the Centre’s farm laws, has adversely hit the export-oriented units (EOUs) of the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) belt as the transportation of both raw material and finished goods has been affected.

Major problems are being faced by textile, engineering tools and pharmaceutical investors, who are facing undue delay in receiving containers of raw materials as well as sending finished goods to various ports.

Exports are transported through containers from the Baddi-based inland container depot to dry ports at Dapper and Ludhiana in Punjab. Since rail traffic has been facing disruption for over a month, the supply of both raw materials and finished goods has been stuck at various places.

IMJS Sandhu, president, Vardhman Textiles, termed it as an “unsavoury” situation. He said the supply of certain raw materials was stuck for days together and even the delivery of finished goods was facing inordinate delays of seven to nine days initially, forcing them to switch over to the costly option of using roadways.

“Efforts to arrange transportation through roads has enhanced the input cost to almost double as shortage of raw material and delay in dispatching the finished goods forced us to use the roadways. An unavoidable delay of two or three days is also being faced,” said Neeraj Jain, Joint Managing Director, Vardhman Textiles.

Other textile units like Indorama, which is another EOU, in Baddi is also facing similar problems. The image of the domestic industry is taking a severe beating in Europe and the US as supply orders cannot be delivered within the stipulated time.

Sandeep Verma, director, Ashoka Spanners Private Limited, Baddi, which exports its engineering goods to Europe and US, said, “Though manufacturing had picked up after the lockdown, the disruption of rail traffic in Punjab has severally hit us as finished goods are piled up in the units.”

“The delay in meeting the export orders is severally tarnishing our image abroad and our customers are even exploring the option of shifting their orders to countries like China as such disruptions have become routine,” said Verma.

SL Singla, Advisor, Himachal Drug Manufacturers Association, while echoing similar views, said, “I am awaiting transportation of my goods since the last about 20 days to Tehran, Afghanistan, Pakistan. In the absence of any alternative, my containers packed with finished goods are lying on the unit premises as engaging trucks for their transportation will also invite additional costs.”