As leather industry is going through turbulent times across the country and the proposed leather park on 80 kanal of land at Industrial Growth Centre, Lassipora has hit a road block, the official apathy is discouraging the local entrepreneurs to venture into the sector despite availability of huge raw material in Kashmir.
In absence of production facilities, leather industry in thevalley only produces ‘wet blue’ or semi-finished leather which is supplied toneighbouring states for production of leather goods.
To create a local production hub, the leather park at IGC,Lassipora was envisioned with much fanfare in 2015 after a memorandum ofunderstanding was signed between the State Industrial Development Corporation(SIDCO) and Council for Leather Exports (CLE). But now it lies defunct.
As per officials, CLE was keen to establish a commonfacility centre for manufacturers of finished leather goods at the park.However, with demand for leather in retail market witnessing a nosedive, thedevelopment of the 80 kanal of land set-aside for the leather cluster has notseen light of the day.
More than a dozen leather processing and tannery unitholders at Lassipora are disappointed with the failure of the government inencouraging new players to enter the sector and make the park fully functional.The unit holders say prospective players in the sector are made to run frompillar to post in getting environmental clearances.
“Almost Rs 14 crorewere spent on setting up the upgraded common affluent treatment plant with helpof central schemes at IGC but it is not being put to proper use for the units.The proposed leather park could have helped to provide a boost to production ofjackets, shoes and other leather accessories locally,” said Farooq AhmadRawanda, who runs a tannery at IGC Lassipora. According to estimates 45 lakh hides of sheeps and goats are obtainedannually in the valley, said Rawanda, who is also president of Leather GoodsProcessing Association.
Bulk of these hides are exported but with setting up ofleather manufacturing units at Lasipora, a huge amount of this raw materialused for leather could be utilised in the Valley itself.
However, with less interest from entrepreneurs in leatherindustry due to slowdown in this sector, the government is now mulling toutilise the 80 kanal of land for cold storage or some other popular sector.
“Traditionallyleather as a sector has not thrived in the Valley. In addition this sector isknown for being more polluting. At a time when no entrepreurs have showninterest in setting up leather production units we are intending to utilise theland for either cold storage or some other purpose,” said SIDCO MD, RavinderKumar.
Various Kashmir-based leather traders say drop in demand hasplummeted the prices of a single sheep skin or goat skin from Rs 400 to Rs 40in last four years.
Earlier sacrificial animal hides on Eid-ul-Adha wereconsidered to be a “priced possession” as several religious institutions,orphanages and downtrodden people collected these animal skins and sold them toleather dealers for generating some income. As a result of the plummeting ofprices, not many charities now show interest in collecting these hides. Rawandasaid raw animal skin is processed into wet blue at IGC Lassipora units but”regulations have tied our hands”, he says. “As far global exports areconcerned we can send only finished leather goods outside India. Our hands aretied as we can’t send the wet blue to overseas,” said Rawanda. Rawanda said his firm used to procure almost1000 sheep skins daily which have now gone down to 200.
“Sheep skins fromKashmiri breed used to involve Rs 100 production cost which includes Rs 40 rawmaterial and Rs 60 for job works. In2013 a sheep skin used to fetch us Rs 400 which does not even get us Rs 40now,” Rawanda added.