Cotton textile sector is facing issues not because of shortfall in production of cotton but because of hoarding, alleged CITU All India secretary R. Karumalaiyaan.
He told presspersons here on Tuesday that textile and clothing sector was the second largest foreign exchange earner and gave jobs directly and indirectly to nearly 10 crore people. Yet, the workers were treated as bonded workers, with no minimum wages. The industry was now struggling because of cotton shortage and the reasons were corporate players and hoarding of cotton, he alleged.
The country does not produce adequate quantity of yarn to meet the domestic needs. Government should ban export of yarn. It should reopen the National Textile Corporation (NTC) units. The CITU plans to strengthen its protests demanding reopening of NTC mills, he said.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) observed a fast in Tiruppur on Tuesday as part of the two-day strike by knitwear units demanding measures to control cotton and yarn prices. The CPI (M) members demanded ban on export of cotton and yarn to control the spiralling raw material prices.
