Power Struggle
- Powerloom owners in Malegaon have not paid their electricity bills for the last two months
- They are protesting against a tariff hike they say is crippling an already hobbled industry
- The situation is volatile but MSEDC, the supplier, is for now going easy on defaulters
- Loom workers face joblessness
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Khatak khatak, khatak khatak. Khatak khatak endlessly, like a long train rattling by but never passing on. The powerlooms of Malegaon rattle to that infernal khatak khatak. It stays in your head, so that every house and shop, hovel and hospital and ‘Piles Cured’ dispensary in town, it seems, throbs to that opiate motif, even when there is no powerloom shed around. The “common sheds”—props, thin walls and sheet-roofing—are scattered about town, and under them, sweating men watch and work the looms. One worker to five or six looms. The dusty cotton fibre floats everywhere, settles on everything—wires, windows, looms, floors, ledges and in the workmen’s hair. Like the despair that has settled on this town and united its one lakh-plus loom-owners in protest: they haven’t been paying electricity bills since September.
The protest began when the tariff was increased in August. Loom-owners used to pay between Rs 1.95 and Rs 2.30 per unit, taking into account the cost of electricity, an additional charge and minus the government subsidy. The price increase took that up to between Rs 3.95 and Rs 5.06 per unit. Loom-owners threw their hands up, said it was unviable. The government subsidy on electricity for powerlooms runs into more than Rs 900 crore per year. But loom-owners say business was already miserable, and a tariff hike weighs down heavily on them. The agitation has spread to other powerloom towns like Ichalkaranji. In Bhiwandi, near Mumbai, loom-owners staged a dharna last week. The state assembly may discuss their problems during the winter session in Nagpur.
“We never took help from the government while setting up this industry. This increase in tariff is too much to handle for an ailing industry,” says Malik Bakrawala, head of the Momin Julaha Ansari Conference, which started the agitation. Most loom-owners are workmen-entrepreneurs of sorts. Family members pitch in with labour. Some owners have invested in more looms and hire extra workmen but haven’t done well enough to upgrade to better looms that work faster and use less electricity.
Malegaon’s glory years were in the 1930-50s. The town was settled in the 1930s by descendants of Muslim weavers from Uttar Pradesh who migrated to the region after the 1857 uprising. It came to be known as the Manchester of India. Other weaving centres like Ichalkaranji, Solapur and Bhiwandi too came up around that period. All of them thrived. But now, loom-owners say they are losing the battle to unfriendly policies.
“We produce only plain cloth, which is sent to Rajasthan or Gujarat for dyeing and design. We are losing nearly 40 per cent of our output because of load-shedding and poor voltage. Naturally, costs go up and we are unable to compete,” says Mohammed Zahid Nadvi, whose 25-member family is dependent on his 32-loom unit. Other livelihood options, such as running shops or hotels, are also dependent on how well powerlooms do.
The complaint is echoed by workers’ groups, which support the agitation but are not participating in it. “We pay 10 times more than in UP, which has a fixed rate for electricity per loom per month. We have to depend on southern states for yarn because there are no spinning mills in the area. Other districts have octroi exemptions. We don’t get that. Add to that low voltage and faulty meters,” says Nimba Kadam, president of the Malegaon Powerloom Action Committee, which is lobbying for more subsidy and for government help in upgrading looms.
However, there are complexities. The town is more like a packed village with clusters of homes and powerlooms jostling for space on both sides of a river that, guess what, divides the Hindu and Muslim areas. Most of the looms are in the Muslim pockets. In this town of some 6 lakh inhabitants, it’s difficult to expect the artisan class to have exposure to the economics, strategies and management of businesses. Many refuse to take loans as interest-free Islamic banking is not available. Women assist with the loom work.
In all, of 1,62,000 connections in Malegaon, 97,000 are residences and 9,369 are powerlooms (each meter provides power to several looms), 8,370 are commercial and 1,865 are industrial units. “More than 50 per cent of our revenue in this town comes from the powerlooms. In October and November, we collected Rs 12 crore and Rs 10 crore, when the target was Rs 18 crore. Before August we met our target of Rs 15-16 crore,” says Ashok Thorat, MSEDC’s executive engineer.
“We are holding meetings. Non-payment will only compound penal interest. Some are paying. The owners may decide to pay under protest,” says Prashant Shinde, an MSEDC chief engineer. He says MSEDC is going slow with disconnecting supply for non-payment. Power theft is certainly part of the problem. Distribution losses are as high as 30 per cent: many looms hook themselves up illegally to supply lines. Many loom-owners share one space and one meter. Their houses are in the same compound with a separate meter. Owners get permission for five looms but operate as many as 15 or 20 looms. For industrial upgradation, experts say, the loom-owners should give up such practices, but this is unlikely to happen soon.
Khalil Mohammed, 79, lives in Raja Nagar with a large family of brothers, sons, nephews. The looms in the backyard are shut because of a financial crunch. “Still I work, I have travelled far for business,” he says, displaying a cradle woven with yellow and red nylon threads and a Banarasi saree. Despite the intricate work, it may find buyers only in the neighbourhood and not reach any metros, flooded with international brands. A dusty embroidery machine lies unused in a passageway. Children run around it, blurring the demarcations of workplace and home. He wants subsidy benefits, he wants the faulty meters corrected. But he is not sure all that will happen soon.
Emotions run high in this communally sensitive town. “We are not disconnecting supply to many defaulters only because we fear that might start off a law and order problem,” says one official. “And if, because we disconnect supply, workers are rendered jobless, they will come out on the streets.” Mufti Ismail, the local MLA, warns of protests: “All the powerlooms are at least three generations old. In the last ten years, the cost of production has risen several times over. The industry is on its death bed. Things will get out of hand if the government does not bail people out now.” He says loom-owners are being neglected by the government because of their religion.
Mohammed Arif Aseem Khan, the minister for textiles and minorities development, says, “The government already gives a subsidy of Rs 900 crore to the powerloom sector. I agree that more help is required to make the industry more viable. There is a plan for modernisation, which may be implemented through the minority department, since ordinary looms don’t feature in the textile policy.”
For now, the government has lost nearly Rs 10 crore per month in recoveries. However, unlike farmers’ loans, there is no provision to waive unpaid power bills. The agitation may find itself in a deadlock: recovery will get harder for officials and the atmosphere more difficult for the worker-owners to perform.
Meanwhile, workers are worried. Ashfaq Khalid, 26, has been working 12-hour shifts at a powerloom since he was a child. He doesn’t know much else and earns Rs 56 for every nine-yard sari he weaves; it takes him three or four hours. He’s among the workers who earn the “best rates”. But there just isn’t enough work to make a decent package. In an adjoining shed, some of the 19 looms have been switched off. Tahir Ansari, the owner, says he can no longer afford to pay either the electricity bills or the workmens’ wages. He has joined the ‘bill roko’ protest, of course. But, he hopes, the town will throb again to the beat of the looms.
