Coimbatore: A sudden increase in raw material prices has prompted the Federation of Coimbatore Industrial Association (Focia) to urge the central government to form a price monitoring committee and fix a cap limit on the prices.
“Price of steel, copper, aluminium and zinc has gone up by 16 to 25% in the last two months. That of materials like PVC pipes and ABS plastic have gone up by 140%,” Focia coordinator J James told reporters on Wednesday.
The last time industries witnessed such a price rise was in 2017, when the central government introduced goods and service tax (GST), he said. “After struggling for months, we have started to recover from the brunt of Covid-19 pandemic. But due to the price hike, companies are forced to reduce production.”
Ravindran, president of Coimbatore Compressor Industries’ Association, said they could not revise the rate of products as their customers are not willing to deviate from the quoted price. “We have orders from some government sectors and if we delay delivery, they would slap penalty on us for every single day. Gone are the days when we sold our products for a considerable profit.”
“To control the price rise, the central government should form a price monitoring committee and fix cap limit on price of raw materials. The cap limit should be revised only once a year. The central government should also fix a limit on storing raw materials,” Ravindran said. “The central government already has a monitoring committee to control price rise in the agricultural sector and has fixed a minimum support price for certain farm produce.”
As many as 19 associations including Coimbatore Wet Grinders Manufacturers Association (Cowma), Coimbatore SIDCO Industrial Estate Manufacturers’ Welfare Association (Cosiema) and Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Micro Enterprises (Tact) are part of the federation, which has over 10,000 industries as members.
To press their charter of demands, the members have decided to stage a massive protest on December 15.