The Hindu Business Line : On the trail of fading footprints

SQUATTING on the floor, Sambhaji Harkare (59) bangs away with a steel hammer on a piece of water-soaked leather which will go to form the sole of the famed Kolhapuri chappals. "My son is not interested in doing what I do and has set up shop in Kolhapur town to frame pictures," he says.

Sambhaji forms a part of the labour force of four men and two women who work off and on in the spacious hall of the Footwear Production Centre belonging to the Leather Industries Development Corporation of Maharashtra (LIDCOM), which was set up to encourage the Kolhapuri chappal industry. Some 10 to 12 years ago the Centre employed about 65 men and women when the industry was going through a boom. Today there are few orders, raw material costs are soaring and the villagers in and around Kolhapur have wound up business.

Around 9 in the morning our autorickshaw wound its way into Subhash Nagar, where the centre is located. Passing through the dirty frontyard of the centre which has some six dishevelled shacks and a few pigs scurrying around one enters the office to meet G.K. Adsul, manager, supervising the thin activity. Everything about the work place at the centre is a sign of bad days: Water leaking all over the floor, little light, white walls wearing a brown look and an absence of any activity. "There is nothing left here. The Kolhapuri chappal industry is living in the past and it has no future as the new generation is not keen to continue the tradition,'' admits Adsul.

The centre was set up years ago to manufacture Kolhapuri chappals sourcing tanned leather from its sister unit at Satara. But the shortage of raw leather, mainly supplied by Chennai and high costs have cut into margins. Bagtan leather (BT leather) made from buffalo, cow or bullock skins are the best for the sole of the chappal and their prices have gone up by about 10 per cent per year over the last five to six years and are ruling at around Rs 120-130 per kg. For the uppers, there is number one Gavi leather with number two sheepskin or goat skin leather costing between Rs 600 and Rs 800 per kg. With Chennai and other raw material centres exporting uppers, little is available for the Kolhapuri chappal cottage industry. The introduction of artificial leather has killed the original all-pure leather Kolhapuri chappals, admits Adsul.

There are no numbers or firm estimates available on the number of units or workers. But going by talks with a large number of retailers, manufacturers and the rest one gains the impression that the industry is stuck forever in the handmade mould. Arun Kumar Satpute who has his small works attached to his home employing 10 to 12 workers at Subhash Nagar and a few others admit to the business losing sheen. Adsul explains that a committee at LIDCOM decides the price every year and that does not allow much room to accommodate a rise in raw materials.

For the current year, the raw material cost has been worked out at Rs 93.28, labour charges come to Rs 37.90 and the overhead costs come to Rs 26.23 putting the total cost at around Rs 157 for a pair of Kolhapuri. On both sides of the Shivaji Market in Kolhapur town, a pair sells at between Rs 200 and Rs 250 which should ideally help the centre to make profits. If that is not happening it is because they cannot hold costs at the estimates made. Rashtriya Leather Works, with five showrooms, has a sizable production base at Subhash Nagar where only women are employed to keep costs down. The private outfits pay less to its workers than at the centre run by LIDCOM and the labour force does not enjoy any other benefits like PF.

Inquiries show a pair should not cost beyond Rs100 or at best Rs 125 at the private outfits. At the retail price of Rs 200-250, a private manufacture earns at least Rs 50 per pair with the rest going to the retail shop owner. In fact these steep profit margins help the private sector run a scheme of "advances" for its workers. Owners compete for the best workers by paying them higher advances, which ranges between Rs 10,000 and Rs 25,000 and is not deductible. A worker in any of these units initially starts on an advance of Rs 10,000 and leaves the shed for another owner on an advance of Rs 25,000 after paying up the initial advance of Rs 10,000. Most of the workers earn a daily wage of about Rs 27 to Rs 28 with no fixed time schedule. Most of the owners complain of the advance being frittered away which cost is laced on to the final price.

The centre despite higher wages cannot attract talent as they do not participate in the practice of "advances", says Adsul. Men are preferred for the hard work of softening processed leather by beating it over hours with steel hammers with the women doing the light work of stitching the upper to the sole. The thud, thud, thud of the steel hammer meeting the leather is the lone music which we got used to over two days of visiting production sites at Kolhapur, Miraj and Athani in Karnataka. In earlier times, villages around Kolhapur supplied the sole or the uppers to the bigger units but all that is now over with the business seeing bad times since the 1990s.

For a leather expert like Adsul, Khas Kolhapuri chappals are the best with the upper made of sheepskin. Walking around Shivaji Market, one could see Kolhapuri chappals fighting for the public eye with other brands. Anil R. Dhoiphode of Kumar Footwear has stopped selling Kolhapuri. "In olden times cow calf leather was used and today it is not used. Today most of our customers ask for branded leather products even if they are costly," he says.

N.D. Kadam of Navyog Leather admits exports have dropped by over 80 per cent in the last 10 years with none from Kolhapur in the business. "A couple of years ago, our exporters earned the industry a bad name after sending consignments which did not match the original samples. Overseas importers have lost faith in us. Another problem is the entire process of making Kolhapur is hand-made and standards are hard to meet. One pair differs from another while the foreigner wants every pair to look and feel alike. Also, if at all foreigners place orders they do it in huge lots of 10,000 or 20,000 pairs and insist on each pair being the same. None is able to meet these demands," Kadam admits. His son is in the trade of selling Kolhapuri chappals but not into manufacture. The biggest market is Kolkata and the North-East followed by New Delhi.

Adsul says the sector is reserved for the small scale sector and that disables them from adopting new technology or even new designs. Rajender Mahadev More at Miraj runs a factory styled Master Industries. His father is today a retired school teacher and used to make a few chappals every day in his spare time. His son today has named the unit Master Industries as a village teacher goes by the sobriquet of Master. Manufacturing about 5,000 pairs per month and content to meet demand from outstation centres, More is happy with his "seva" for the common man.

"Years ago some 100 to 150 villages around Miraj were busy making chappals but today they do not exist. Novelty and quality are musts though they do not happen. Even good cattle has disappeared from the villages making it difficult to source raw material as agriculture is not paying," he says. Banks have been busy funding the industry but a large part of advances have gone sour. More admits to bank funding and today has let out space to the bank, which funded him in the first instance. LIDCOM does provide subsidy and the Central Government is keen on the activity, says Adsul, but there are no takers.

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