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Bantala (West Bengal): A severe cash crunch led to labor shortages, multiple bank loans, cancellations of “confirmed orders” and fears of a third Covid wave blew up West Bengal’s leather industry, which contributes significantly to the country’s international leather exports. gives.
The state ranks second only to Tamil Nadu in international exports of finished or processed leather and leather goods in the country.
But speaking to ThePrint, General Secretary, Calcutta Leather Complex Tanners Association (CLCTA), Imran Ahmed said that Bengal’s tannery industry has suffered huge losses and its share in exports has come down by 30-40 per cent.
“We used to export around Rs 6,000 crore or more annually in the years before the pandemic, but in the past year and a half, most tenors have been suffering from order cancellations and supply chain disruptions,” he said.
The leather hub, popularly known as the Calcutta Leather Complex, is located at Bantala in South 24 Parganas district, about 30 km from Kolkata.
The complex is spread over 1,083 acres and consists of 395 tannery units, many of which ship their goods to markets in countries such as Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam and Hong Kong. The owners claim that luxury brands such as Gucci and Coach produce leather as well as products from these tanneries.
Ahmed said that just three years ago, after 187 large and medium tanneries from Uttar Pradesh submitted an expression of interest to the MSME (Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises) department of the West Bengal government to transfer their units, the sector He was looking fast. State.
“The move came after the Yogi government banned slaughterhouses and tannery business in 2018. However, all projects have come to a standstill since the pandemic hit.
“We will start manufacturing units for the tanners of UP once the Covid crisis is resolved. Currently, we are trying to support existing tannery factories, which are struggling really hard to survive. ”
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‘Almost recession-like situation’
Nearly 18 months after the first Covid lockdown, tenors are struggling to meet their needs. The industry depends on perishable raw materials such as animal hides – mainly goat, buffalo and cow – and needs to run its treatment plants 24×7.
The Tenors told The Print that the closure for more than six to eight months has cost them nearly a year.
Kifi Ye, 74, owner of a second generation tannery, said he had to borrow from several banks to keep his unit running.
“Since the first lockdown, everything related to business has become so uncertain. Last year about 80 per cent of our confirmed orders were canceled indefinitely. Now, I am under debt pressure and don’t know how to take this business forward,” Ye said.
“It is not easy to set up a tannery factory and keep it running for years. This is no small business either. We are dependent on a supply chain,” he said. “After the second wave, the domestic supply chain was completely destroyed, while we also lost our international market. It hasn’t been fixed yet. The third wave, if it ever happens, will wipe us out.”
Ye’s father came from China and settled in Chinatown, Kolkata in 1930. He first opened his tannery unit in Chinatown, located in the Tangra-Topsia area on the eastern side of the city. Ye had moved units to the leather complex a decade ago.
Like Ye and his father, Kolkata, its outskirts and parts of South 24 Parganas district have traditionally been home to three or four generations of Tanners from China.
Chinese people settled on the eastern outskirts of the city during the beginning or middle of the nineteenth century. The tanning or leather trade was earlier exclusive to the Chinese tanners in Kolkata, but it was later taken over by traders from Bihar, mainly Hindi-speaking Muslims, who have local businesses in the city.
One such entrepreneur, Mohammad Mumtaz Shaheen, manager of Punjab Tannery in the complex, said that his unit reopened in June, but orders are still being cancelled.
“Customers claim they have lost the market. It is almost a recession-like situation. Who will buy bags and purses or luxuries when people hardly have money to spend? Asks Shaheen.
Pointing to the pile of finished leather sheets, he said, “The order was supposed to go out today, but it got canceled again. Things are not looking up. “
Aaqib Hasan, owner of Ranjit Tannery, said that he had to lay off all his employees and labourers.
“I had no money, how will I pay wages? I have had to sell my property, liquidate my deposits to support my family. I closed my unit for about a year. In fact, to turn it around again, I have borrowed from banks. This is the situation,” Hassan said.
“We are staring at uncertainty, as we do not know what will happen in the future if another lockdown hits us or the market closes. We’ll be finished.”
Vinay Singh, general manager, administration, CLCTA said, like Hasan’s unit, 90 out of 395 tannery factories were completely closed last year.
“Thousands of labourers, locals and migrants lost jobs, while owners broke their deposits and sold properties to survive,” Singh said.
Exports down, but numbers show early signs of improvement
Apart from the apparent fall in demand, the leather industry has also suffered due to other reasons, such as rising cost of cargo and chemicals, among others.
“We need a variety of chemicals, a lot of containers and a supply chain for processing. The cost of cargo flights for exports has almost tripled and the cost of containers for chemicals and products has gone up manifold,” said Zia Nafees, a member of the Leather Export Council, an organization sponsored by the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry . .
Zia is one of the two members who represent Bengal’s leather industry in the central body.
“The leather industry of Bengal is now surviving only by making industrial gloves. As soon as factories started opening, we started getting orders for industrial gloves,” said Jia. The market for luxury items, finished leather and footwear has gone down significantly.
According to official data from the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, accessed by ThePrint, the export performance of the eastern region declined by at least 40-50 per cent across various segments of leather products from April 2020 to March 2021.
in the eastern region of the country, The leather hub of West Bengal is the only major one.
According to Kolkata port and airport data, accessed by ThePrint, the footwear components business declined by 99.33 per cent, while the leather goods market saw a decline of around 32 per cent, finished leather by 21 per cent. There has been a decline. The leather garments market has declined by 55 per cent in the same period.
Data from the ministry said that between April 2019 and March 2020, exports of leather and leather products across India reached around Rs 35,950 crore. It was around Rs 39,793 crore in the April 2018 financial year. However, exports fell to around Rs 5,835 crore in the April 2020 to July 2020 period.
However, there are signs of a revival. In the four months of April to July 2021, exports of leather and leather products increased to Rs 10,428 crore, which is about 26 per cent of the full year performance of 2018-19 in the four months.
(Edited by Arun Prashant)
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