The forging industry, among the worst hit due to the recent global economic meltdown and the continuing apathy of policy makers, has been seeking relief and succor to help save the industry and the livelihood of its workforce of more than 200,000. The industry is predominantly made up of over 700 units in the SME sector and is clustered around the three auto hubs— Chennai, Pune and Ludhiana .

In its continuing fight for survival, the voice of the industry, the Association of Indian Forging Industry (with 161 registered members), recently launched the signature campaign to mobilise support for the work force who have been directly affected by recurring issues and problems. “Over the last several months, more than five units have totally closed shutters and many others have seen unprecedented production cutbacks. In all, more than 50,000 jobs have been lost across the nation. This has brought a large number of the units in the forging industry (which once earned over $470 million in forex for the country) to the brink of extinction,” said V Krishnan, president, AIFI, in Chennai on Monday.

AIFI has sought various measures from the state governments and the Centre to help save the industry. Key ones among them include more aggressive initiatives to boost demand in the infrastructure and auto sectors, softer financing from the banking industry and an increase in export benefits, mainly DEPB benefits for the forged components, Krishnan added.

Krishnan said, “Last year’s spiraling costs of steel had already brought the forging industry to its knees. The economic slowdown which followed was another severe blow. As per our estimates, most of the working units are working at 20-30% capacity. Several of the mid-size companies have shut one or more units. The ones hit hardest are the hundreds of small units which have quietly closed down, leaving their workers jobless.”

“At this juncture the only solution we had was to the Centre for help. So, we have launched the signature campaign to mobilise the support of our work force to join us in raising our voices and to draw the attention of the policymakers, both at the national and the state levels. We will be presenting our appeal, strengthened by the voices of our employees, to key policy makers in Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu,” he added.

Published in Financial Express dated. 1.4.2009.