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ELECTIONS '96

Powerloom centre finds government policy a millstone around its neck

Syed Firdaus Ashraf in Ichalkaranji

Sanjay Nikam's chore begins at nine in the morning on reaching his loom at the Jain Power Looms, at Ichalkaranji and ends with a fear in his mind that he will lose his job anyday.

And in this he is not unique. There are nearly one hundred thousand machine operators like him in Ichalkaranji who feel threatened by the ongoing recession in the market and the discriminatory policies of the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government.

Says he, "Though I work for eight hours a day, there is hardly any production of cloth in my factory. And my owner is planning to shut down his operation."

His owner Ratan Jain is fed up with the fact that Ichalkaranji, which was a main production centre for saris and dhotis, is losing its business to other cities like Coimbatore, Bhiwandi, Surat, Kishengad and Behrampur. Says Jain, "Ever since the BJP-Sena came to power in 1995, they have been discriminating against us since a majority of powerlooms are owned by Congressmen."

Their grievance is that the government has done nothing to reduce the cost of electricity, create more infrastructure and solve the labour unrest.

In their opinion, Ichalkaranji is losing out to other cities because of the latter's lower cost of production, enabled by a more friendly government than what they have in Maharashtra.

Says Shridhar Atmaram Dongre, owner of Padmavati Enterprise, a powerloom which employs about 100 people, "Nearly 25,000 powerlooms have shut down in Ichalkaranji, and many more will follow if some concrete decision is not taken soon to protect the powerlooms."

However, this is not the first time that these looms are facing recession and labour unrest. In early 1960s the town witnessed protests by workers when the handlooms were replaced by powerlooms.

The labourers, under the banner of the CPI-M affiliated Centre for Indian Trade Unions, called for a strike, but due to the intervention of the then Congress government a compromise was reached.

The second crisis occurred in 1975 when the demand for dhoti cloth began to drop and demand for polyester, chiffon and denim began to pick up. However, the owners were quick enough to change according to the times.

But the locals feel they will not be able to survive this time as there has been a mass exodus of workers, and businessmen are venturing into other businesses and giving up traditional powerloom factories.

"Due to ongoing recession many workers have left Ichalkaranji and owners are finding it difficult to find workers to operate powerlooms," says Suryaji Salonke, CITU joint secretary, Maharashtra.

However, besides the discriminatory attitude of the BJP-Sena government, Salunke also blames powerloom owners who were underpaying the workers with just Rs 1,500 per month, forcing them to look for greener pastures.

Interestingly, in the last election, the CPI-M which has hardly any presence in Maharashtra was able to bag nearly 12.81 per cent of the votes. Its candidate K L Malabade bagged 90,000 votes.

Ichalkaranji's cloth production goes back to more than 1,000 years since there was always a presence of Koshi and Sali Samaj, a community which is traditionally involved in making cloth.

Even today, nearly 35 per cent of the population is from Koshi and Sali Samaj in this constituency which is on the border of Karnataka and Maharasthra that is divided by the Panchganga river .

Though there is a shortage of drinking water and a fear that the powerlooms may close down, thereby affecting 600,000 workers, it is not an election issue since the campaign here is personality oriented rather than issue based.

Besides 70,000 small powerlooms, there are three huge cooperative powerlooms which employ nearly 15,000 people. Interestingly. all the three are controlled by Congressmen - and are making losses.

In fact, the Congress's sitting MP and its nominee Kallapa Awade is also chairman of the Ichalkaranji Co-operative Spinning Mill.

Says G M Chittiappa, general manager (production), Icospin (Ichalkaranji Cooperative Spinning Mill), "For the first time in the 20 years since our inception, we have been making losses for the last two years." However, Chittiappa refused to divulge any figures.

Though the present Sena-BJP government is giving incentives to start new automatic co-operative powerlooms, owners feel that the money is too less.

"The Sena-BJP government is sanctioning Rs 30 million which is not enough to start a good co-operative mill. At least Rs 300 million is needed to start a new co-operative loom," said a general manager of a Congress-dominated co-operative mill.

Congressmen feel the Sena-BJP is sanctioning loans to only a few of its supporters and is not interested in maintaining the existing mills.

Though there were strikes and demonstrations galore against the BJP-Sena government in the last two years, the latter has still not met the demands of powerloom owners.

Says Dilawar Khan, a machine operator, "My brother who was working in a Solapur powerloom lost his job because his company closed down. I hope I don't lose my job since I can't do anything else."

Elections '98

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