more-in Nearly 400 foundries that are small-scale have downed shutters here for two days, protesting against the fluctuations in raw material prices. President of Coimbatore Tiny Small Foundry Owners’ Association Siva Shanmugakumar said its members decided not to operate on Friday and Saturday as frequent and steep fluctuations in raw material prices hurt the units. The suppliers are ready to give the materials only for cash purchase and the customers, mostly textile machinery, pump and engineering industries, buy castings on credit. When there is a spurt in raw material price the cash flow is affected. The small foundries need a raw material bank where there will be stocks for a month. This should be set up by the State Government, he said. The production loss incurred by the foundries was ?50 crore a day. J. James, president of Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Tiny Enterprises, said if the protests by the foundries continued or if there was no effort by the government to bring down the prices, the associations would come together to decide the future course of action. When foundries stop production, the micro units do not get raw castings to do job work. “Our production will slump. The raw material prices are uncontrolled and in the last two or three months have incresaed by ?15,000 to ?20,000, he said. According to S. Ravikumar, president of Coimbatore Tirupur District Micro and Cottage Enterprises Association, introduction of the GST was expected to bring down raw material prices. The rates had shot up and have become an additional burden to micro units. The foundries also faced high input costs and had no option but to reduce the rates given to job work for micro industries. This added to the problems faced by the micro and tiny units. “We have supported the strike by foundries as we are also affected by these factors and we want relief,” he said.

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