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With a seeming second wave of the novel coronavirus in India, fears of job and income loss has struck again among Karnataka’s garment workers—most of them women—who were among the worst hit last year, when around two lakh of them lost jobs. Many garment units shut down and the total number of women workers has now dropped to less than a lakh.
As per estimates, there are around 1,500 garment factories in the state, of which more than 900 are in Bengaluru. According to labour minister Shivaram Hebbar, more than 2.85 lakh women were working in 983 garment units as of last year.
At least 85 per cent of garment industry workers are women, and a large number are from Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and other states, Rukmini, president of the Garment and Textile Workers’ Union, told a top south Indian English-language daily.
According to activists, many of the workers who lost their jobs returned to their native villages where some are working under MNREGA. Those who stayed back in Bengaluru are doing odd jobs like housekeeping.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
With a seeming second wave of the novel coronavirus in India, fears of job and income loss has struck again among Karnataka's garment workers-most of them women-who were among the worst hit last year, when around two lakh of them lost jobs. Many garment units shut down and the total number of women workers has now dropped to less than a lakh.