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NT Bureau
Chennai, Sept 23:

        A group of 30 garment exporters who had been allotted 90 acres of land at Irungattukkottai by the SIPCOT for the setting up of Chennai Apparel Park were finding the going tough in the absence of common facilities for their industrial units.

        Though the Apparel Park was conceived with a proper lay-out in 2003 and an exclusive 123 acres of land allotted to 30 entrepreneurs under a long-term lease by SIPCOT, the lapse of Central grant of Rs 6 crore at the end of the Tenth Five-Year Plan had now given rise to fears that the entire project may get stalled forever. Out of the total project cost of Rs 26.70 crore, the Central government has already disbursed Rs 10 crore and SIPCOT had spent another Rs 10 crore which was collected from the allottees to develop roads, water supply, street lights and sewage connections. 'But SIPCOT was supposed to provide common facilities through the additional grant of Rs 6 crore from the Central government for the textile units to being operations. We are informed that even after floating tenders twice, SIPCOT did not get suitable response for setting up these facilities,' said Prakash Sacheti, vice-president, Apparels and Handloom Exporters Association (AHEA). With the lapse of Central grant in March 2007, the garment exporters had met SIPCOT officials to revive the capital outlay for the setting up of basic facilities like effluent treatment plant, training centres, truck terminal, multipurpose centre, staff hostel and design studio, among others.

        In the last two years, five garment units have begun operations and five more exporters would set up their facilities shortly. Also, five apparel units were toying with the idea of shifting their factories to their exclusive park at Irungattukkottai. 'Nearly 50 per cent of the allottees have decided to shift base to the Apparel Park, but there is no response from the SIPCOT on the issue of building common facilities for the garment units,' said Selvin Prabhakar, one of the textile exporters who had been allotted land.

        However, the AHEA members were not willing to share the expenses for common facilities which, according to the earlier agreement, had to be set up by SIPCOT with the central grant.

        The garment units that were functioning at the park now faced a range of problems and bottlenecks like poor roads, unreliable telecom systems and sewage connections only in certain pockets. Besides, the garment units were hit by shortage of labour as electronic and auto-ancillary clusters that have sprung up in and around Irungattukkottai had wooed manpower with higher wages, said AHEA officials. Nokia SEZ, Hyundai plant, leather park and flextronics unit in a radius of 20-30 km from the Apparel Park had given rise to acute shortage of labour for garment units in recent times.

        Further, on a larger perspective Sacheti explained the high-cost of labour, low productivity, intense competition in global markets, rupee appreciation and introduction of FBT (fringe benefit tax), VAT (value-added tax) and service tax have had a negative impact in the growth of garment industry. In the last 10 years, garment exports grew by 20 per cent, but with a slew of negative measures of late a large number of textile units have downed their shutters, he said.

        If SIPCOT, the nodal agency for promoting industry in Tamilnadu, would come forward to set up the infrastructure facilities, then the Chennai Apparel Park would attract investment of Rs 1,000 crore to generate exports of Rs 2,000 crore per annum with the garment units hiring nearly 25,000 to 30,000 trained and semi-skilled labour.