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15 dyeing and printing mills in Surat shut down production due to high costs, shortage of coal

Updated: Dec 26, 2022 08:49:47am
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15 dyeing and printing mills in Surat shut down production due to high costs, shortage of coal

Surat, Dec 26 (KNN) Around 15 textile dyeing and printing mills in Surat have stopped operations due to high costs and shortage in supply of lignite coal, said South Gujarat Textile Processing Association (SGTPA).

SGTPA president Jitu Vakhariya said that the association has raised the issue with GMDC (Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation) authorities to increase the supply and reduce the prices of lignite coal.

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Vakhariya pointed out that the industry gets lignite from GMDC mines at Rajpardi in Bharuch district and mines at Tadkeshwar in Surat district. “The price of lignite from Rajpardi was Rs 2,718 per tonne on March 16, 2021, which now is Rs 3,842 per tonne,” he said.

Similarly, the lignite price of Tadkeshwar mines has gone up from Rs 2,137 per tonne to Rs 5,503 per tonne. Lignite price hike has affected the production cost of textile fabric at large as it constitutes around 25 per cent of the production cost to the industry. The GMDC has reduced supply to the industries, showing different reasons.”

Surat is known as the country’s textile city from where products are sold to various parts of the country. Every day over 4 crore metres of textile cloth is produced in Surat that passes through different processes of dyeing, printing and packaging. There are around 350 textile dyeing and printing mills in Surat that employ lakhs of migrant labourers.

GMDC managing director Roopwant Singh told The Indian Express, “This time, due to extremely intense monsoon, the average allocation of 40 per cent of approved capacity (of lignite) went gone down to 20 percent.”

Vakhariya added that due to Russia invading Ukraine, the cost of imported coal also shot up to Rs 8,000-Rs 9,000 per tonne in December this year from Rs 5,400 in June last year.

He said that themills get imported coal from Indonesia and the middlemen have been increasing the prices. The industry consumes 80 per cent of imported coal and 20 per cent of lignite in the boiler depending on the quality of textile products and type of boiler. The Gross Calorific value (GCV) of lignite coal is 3,000 to 3,200, while gross calorific value of imported is between 5,500 and 6,000.  (KNN Bureau)

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