Open-end mills producing grey yarn launch indefinite strike

COIMBATORE: More than 170 open-end (OE) spinning mills producing grey yarn have commenced indefinite strike across Tamil Nadu from Wednesday against the increasing price of waste cotton and demanding the State government to roll back the power tariff hike.

Tamil Nadu has the maximum number of OE mills, which produce a range of value-added products with waste cotton, used fabric and as well as by recycling pet bottles into fibre.

“Our OEs supply 60 per cent of yarn to handloom, power loom and made-ups across the state. Increase in power tariff, labour issues and rising raw material prices have dealt a death blow to the survival of mills,” said M Jayabal, president of Recycle Textile Federation. The OE mills are concentrated in Coimbatore, Palladam, Avinashi, Udumalpet, Salem and Madurai districts.

“Price of waste cotton costs a whopping 75 per cent from the selling price of raw cotton. While the price of one kg of raw cotton costs Rs 154 per kg, its by-product comber noil is sold for a high of Rs 110 per kg. For many years, it was sold only between 45 to 50 per cent of the prices of raw cotton,” he added.

Of the 270 odd OE grey yarn mills, around 170 commenced their strike on Wednesday and others would also stop production gradually in the coming days. More than 40,000 labourers are likely to go out of job due to the strike, which has also resulted in the stagnation of one crore worth of products in mills.