Ludhiana is one of the two largest cities and largest industrial hub of Punjab known as the Manchester of India, having population of more than 15 lakhs. Ludhiana in Punjab is famous for woolen hosiery and constitutes a sizable chunk of the cotton hosiery market also. About 90% of the nation's output of woolen/acrylic hosiery comes from this region. Ludhiana knitwear cluster has a highly diversified base with about 11, 000 formal and informal firms, and employs more than 200,000 workers.
The knitwear industry has a range of firms employing 50 to 2500 workers depending upon size of firm, i.e. large, medium or small. Besides, there are about 9,000 or so small ``fabricators,'' or independent job-workers who own basic knitting and fabricating equipment and knit or process woolen garments for other larger manufacturers, but do not finish them. There are a large number of women home-based workers in this group who do embroidery and related tasks.
The Ludhiana knitwear industry manufactures a vast range of products, which includes a range of products for winter wear like `sweaters, woollen socks, pullovers, cardigans, thermal wear, gloves, muffler, baret caps, shawls, jackets, jersey, and blankets, and for summer wear like T-shirts, cotton and blended socks, under garments, knitted bed sheet, skirts, tops, sports wear, night suits, etc.. The woolen products have a large range of raw material variety, i.e., Pure Marino, Botany, Lamb's wool, Shetland, Angora and Mohair range, in keeping with the latest demand trends from latest international fashion and color forecasts.
These Ludhiana products have high demand in both domestic as well as international markets. The cluster units use different kinds of yarn for different markets. Main yarn range consists of cotton yarn, acrylic, pure and recycled wool, cashmelon and different blends. Designs for clothes for the domestic market are generally copied from the magazines, etc or samples provided by the buyers. Embroidery, patchwork, printing and beadwork are done with indigenous machinery and the quality of embroidery is not up to the standards acceptable in international markets.
Exports from Ludhiana based garment and hosiery units have generally been around 10% of the total production. Main export markets – till early 1990s, it was former USSR and Middle East and now in recent years it has expanded to other markets in Europe and USA. Punjab exported ready-made garments and hosiery worth about Rs. 1312 crores in the year 2004, which went up to Rs. 1618 crores by March 2005.
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