Industrial city Kanpur at its deathbed

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Saurabh Gupta | 20 Aug, 2008
This is a fact that once Kanpur city of Uttar Pradesh was not only known as the Manchester of India, but also known as Manchester of the Eastern World. It was said that in Kanpur nobody slept hungry because everyone had enough work for their livelihood.

But today Kanpur cuts a sorry picture, a picture of neglect, non-existent infrastructure with almost all industries either closing down or shifting base to better locations.

After independence, in the mid of 50s, industries in Kanpur city were at their peak. Various big industries developed by British emperors were given to the central government. Along with these, other big industries like ventures of J K industries, Swadeshi Cotton Mill, Elgin Mills Co. Ltd., Lal Imli and many others were formed and most of there industries were under the supervision of central government.

Kanpur was one of the biggest producer of the textile products. Apart from the textile industry and the leather industry, two wheelers, chemicals, fertilizers, hosiery, and engineering goods were also the major industries made this city the Manchester of the East.

The leather industry, which is now one of the biggest industry of Kanpur city, earns Rs.2,000 crore a year in revenue.

Now the image has completely changed. During this correspondent's visit to Kanpur, he have saw nothing more than chaos and gloom. He have found that Kanpur, once India's leading industrial center, is now a graveyard of industries.

In the 1990s the textile industry was in a state of crisis, most mills closed down, the labour movement was fragmented and the working class appeared decimated. In the past 15-18 years almost 90 percent of big industries and around 50 small units have closed down.

Thousands of labourers have been retrenched from their jobs. They are crying for their livelihood, but no one is listening. Their lives and identities are closely intertwined with work in the mills.

On July 31, 1998 closure notices were slapped on Elgin Mills Co. Ltd. and the Cawnpore Textile, both owned by the Central Government-owned British Indian Corporation (BIC). The BIC group owns five units in Kanpur and an equal number of units are being run by the National Textile Corporation (NTC) group. The Ministry of Finance has clearly said that it was in no mood to dole out money for running the loss-making units.

SME Times discussed this pain with a few major industrialists of Kanpur city, who elaborated their plight and gave a picture of negligence and callousness of not only respective state governments, but also the central government.

One of the renowned leather industrialists Mukhtarul Amin of Super House, said, "This is very unfortunate. Kanpur was the one of the biggest city in fact it was the Manchester of India, but now it is no where in the industrial map of the world."

While talking about the reasons, Mukhtarul Amin didn't purely blamed the government, but also held the industrialists responsible for the current state of affairs.

He said, "Most of the industries in Kanpur, either government-owned or individually-owned, didn't make changes in their production systems with the advent of technology. They were unable to keep up with modernisation of operations and thus had to suffer most."

"And I think the biggest setback for the industry here was that most of the British industries were grabbed by the central government. The last nail in the coffin was that of the Jaipura, which was acquired by the then government of Janta Party. Two things killed most of these units: first was that these units didn't update their equipment with the change of time and technology and the second thing was Inspector-Raj," he added.

The once flourishing industry of Kanpur has of late been facing problems like alleged neglect on part of the State governments, extortion and scarcity of power forcing the industry bigwigs to seek alternatives in terms of business modules and better places.

The biggest setback of these industries is that nobody is realising the gravity of the situation. Most are unaware of these industries' real estate value, which is very huge owing to the fact that these units are situated at the heart of the city. And most of these units are awaiting a flavourable decision from the authorities.

"The same problems that afflicted the textile industry trickled down to Kanpur's leather industry too. For instance TEFCO, one of the largest government undertakings was declared sick and till today no judgment has been pronounced. Sadly enough God knows what has happened to the equipment of this unit. Most of them have either been stolen or else left to rust. It's such a waste of equipment," said Mukhtarul Amin.

"Another hurdle faced by industries in Kanpur is shortage of good infrastructure, mainly power. Lack of uninterrupted electricity is one of the major hurdles in the way of the growth of Kanpur industry," said M. M. Kothari, founder of Kothari group of industries.

"Lack of infrastructure is one of the prime factor that make industries in Kanpur uncompetitive in the fast emerging Indian market. There is a need for infrastructure development mainly power generation, which is a key soul of development of any industry. Our industry can't live without this basic need," he said.

"The basic infrastructure refers to the need for development to be integrated, socially, economically and environmentally, oriented to the long-term, and hence, able to last. The extent of infrastructure development of city is an indicator of it's economic growth," he added.

All big and small industries, which are already battling power blues and poor infrastructure, are now moving towards some other better cities or even to other states.

States like Bihar are already wooing these industries with several sops and incentives. Recently the Nitish Kumar government has promised to provide all the facilities required to establish the industries in that State including suitable land at cheaper rates, uninterrupted power supply, a pollution control plant and required subsidies, a leather industry holder said. The assurance was given by a delegation of senior industries department officials from Bihar who recently visited Kanpur, he said.

Meanwhile the employees' plight is even more pronounced with most of the people moving out of the city in search of better employment opportunities.

A laid-off employee of Swadeshi Cotton Mill, Hira lal said, "I was the supervisor in Swedesi cotton mill. When our unit was closed the management had forcefully given me the VRS. In the beginning I normally got the pension, but now the situation is worse. There is no surety of the pension now."

His brother Ravi has a shop in Mesten Road said, "Mesten Road is one of the busiest markets of Kanpur city that's why it has to face the heavy traffic. Because there is no parking zone for the customers and the shopkeepers so people normally park their vehicles at the mid of the road due to which in every few minutes we have to face the problem of traffic jam."

"Our children do not want to carry on with our business in Kanpur as they feel that they would get better opportunities to expand their base if we move towards Noida or outside UP," said Rakesh Suri, owner of Suri Shoes. According to Suri if this will continue for another few years then many other top leather industries may shift their base from Kanpur to Rajasthan, Noida and Faridabad.

Rameshwar Dayal who after losing his job from Swadeshi Cotton Mill has opened a sweets shop in Panki region of the city said, "I have opened this shop for my bread and butter, but due to water-logging on the road in front of my shop no body wants to come here. We are seven members in our family and facing the same problem for the last four years."

Mukhtarul Amin said that all big buyers from south-eastern countries and Europe were not ready to visit Kanpur's industries and export houses due to the lack of civic amenities, absence of international air-link, absence of good hotels, poor roads and unhygienic conditions of Kanpur city.

"Foreign buyers rather prefer to stay in Agra, the Taj city, where they can avail better hotels to stay and proper connectivity of air and road link," said Mukhtarul Amin.

All major industrialists of the city told SME Times that there was a need to build a new Kanpur. This city has reached its saturation and there is no scope and hope for improvement with its current infrastructure. The government needs to think in the lines of building a new Kanpur which will be empowered with infrastructure and will be well connected.