Over 3,000 textile shops down shutters against hike in yarn price

Urging the Central and the State governments to take steps to control the price of yarn that has gone up by over 30% in the past few months, members of Erode Cloth Merchants Associations downed shutters for a day here on Thursday.

Shops are located at Kongalamman Kovil Street, Eswaran Kovil Street and market areas in the city in which 95% of the textile products are sold across the country while the rest is exported to a few nations. Its president K. Kalaiselvan said that yarn price is increasing frequently affecting their business severely.

“The price of yarn is on the upward trend for many months now as we are unable to sell our products”, he said. Over 3,000 shops in the city were closed on Thursday resulting in loss of business transactions to the tune of ₹50 crore and affecting over 40,000 daily earners and workers, including loadmen and vehicle drivers.

Mr. Kalaiselvan wanted both the governments to intervene and regulate the yarn price and also fix the price once or twice in a month. “We cannot take orders from customers as the yarn price keeps changing everyday”, he said. Since textile shops were closed, the usually busy streets where the shops were located wore a deserted look for the day. Business was also affected in tea shops and eateries while loadmen also lost their livelihood for the day.