For over 40 years, garment units in Solapur have been making uniforms and supplying them to the country’s school, college, office and factory uniform market.
The largest industry player in the uniform segment, Mafatlal Uniforms, has its manufacturing facility in Solapur. There are 1,200 small units spread across Solapur with a strong legacy of stitching uniforms. They churn out around 5 lakh to 8 lakh uniforms every day here but remain unknown. The majority of them are not scaling up, with the units doing business in the range of Rs 2 crore to Rs 10 crore on an average. A few of them also export uniforms. Their counterparts in Tirpur, Mumbai, Bellary and Kolkata have moved ahead and have been identified as major players in the Rs 18,000-crore uniform-manufacturing industry. Solapur now wants to change its uniform profile.
Solapur is a remote location for customers who prefer to go to Mumbai or more accessible places and do their business, rather than come to Solapur where these units are scattered around a larger area and which does not have a common platform on market.
As a result, customers have skipped Solapur, explains Amit Kumar Jain, joint secretary of Shri Solapur Readymade Kapad Utpadak Sangh, an association of the garment manufactures in Solapur.
No other place in the country has such a large number of units, it is just that they have not got the support to expand and grow, he adds. In a bid to make its presence felt in this market and leverage their strength, the association has planned a slew of initiatives.
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According to Jain, they have put forward a proposal to the district industries centre of the state government to create a cluster here, where they could have common shared facilities. “We are working on the details of this project,” said Jain. Many of the value-adding machines are expensive and it makes sense to have these in the common facilities, Jain said. There are plans by the government to set up a mega textile hub here and the association is keen to see this happen. While the larger players account for around R10,000 crore of the industry, the remaining R8,000 is shared by the smaller units. “We want to position Solapur as a sourcing centre for this market and are showcasing this industry and the strength it has with abundant labour skills needed for this industry,” said Jain.
There are many brands here that are capable of scaling up if land is made available to them and this sector promoted, said Jain. So, around 82 of the major players are being showcased at the first-ever uniform and garment manufacturers fair that started on Thursday in Solapur and will go on till Saturday.
The Solapur Readymade Kapad Utpadak Sangh is organising this event with the textile ministry of the government of Maharashtra and Mafatlal Industries, a leading player in the corporate uniforms segment. Apart from showcasing the brand to retailers, the idea is to show that Solapur has the availability of raw materials and labour, as well as the fact that it is well connected with the rest of the country through the rail and road network, with the nearest airports being in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Solapur.