Elections 2019: Bhadohi Carpet Industry Continues to Suffer

Bhadohi: It is a hot morning with mercury crossing the 45-degree marker. Sanjay Gupta, owner of the Global Overseas, a carpet manufacturing unit, is busy calculating his losses in the last financial year.

Gupta, one of the biggest carpet exporters from the district, says that the government has only been speaking about increasing the production, but has hardly done anything to achieve it.

“In the second consecutive year, I have incurred loss in carpet exports. No one will believe me, but you can see the balancesheet. The government wants us to double up the production, but in reality, no effort is being done by them on the ground to help the carpet manufacturers or exporters,” he says.

 Gupta takes us to a weaver in the Gopiganj area to show to us how much hard work goes into making a carpet.

“We pay these weavers 70% of what we earn. The rest 30% comprises our profit as well as the cost of raw material. Our industry is the only industry in India which promotes its weavers – who are also the backbone of the industry. But no schemes have been implemented by the government to help us boost this sector. Instead, policies like GST and demonetisation have affected our trade. Might be that the GST turns out to be a good thing later, but the demonetisation tore our industry apart,” the carpet exporter adds.

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“Bhadohi has got the Geographical Indication (GI) tag; the district has also been awarded the label of ‘State of Excellence’ for carpet manufacturing, and also has been taken under the ‘One District One Product’ flagship scheme of the Uttar Pradesh government. However, all these things are just on the paper, and no one, even the officers, knows when these schemes will be lifted off the ground to help us all,” says the award-winning carpet trader.

The annual turnover of the carpet industry, as per the figures available with the Department of Export Promotion for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Uttar Pradesh, is about 4,500 to 5,000 crores with more than 10 lakh people directly or indirectly involved in this trade.

Aseem Khan, a small-time contractor, who takes the contract of weaving carpets from the big traders, says that since the last two years, the industry has been a victim of aggressive international competition – especially from contries like China and Pakistan.

Khan says, “The government of Pakistan has given 80% subsidy to the air cargo services to export the carpets to the different parts of the globe. The cost we Indians bear to export our carpets through air is 15 euros for one square metre piece, while in Pakistan, the cost is two euros for the same length.”

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“To save time, we resort to air service for sending our goods to the other countries, and cannot depend on the waterways because it is time-consuming. The industry can flourish to no limits if the government provides us the subsidy. Our enemy nation is taking advantage of this kind of situation and we feel helpless. The international traders have started buying in bulk from Pakistan because their product is cheaper due to the less transportation cost,” he says.

It may be mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 had asked the carpet exporters and manufacturers of Bhadohi to double up their exports.

Piyush Baranwal, another carpet exporter from the city, says that everything was going good and then the government detonated its demonetisation bomb.

“We lost many skilled labourers to the demonetisation, and now there is a dearth of skilled labourers. They have migrated to other places, and some have even gone to the Middle East in search of work. Another big issue is the increasing competition from nations like Pakistan. Bangladesh has also started giving us competition, taking help from China. We Indians, who have the expertise, have not been receiving any help from the government,” he says.

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