Seventy match units, affiliated to Tamil Nadu Matches Manufacturers’ Association, located in and around Sattur began a 12-day closure on Wednesday protesting against the spiraling price of raw materials.
The manufacturers said that despite the steep rise in price of raw materials, the inability in fixing production cost had forced them to close down their units as they could not keep revising the selling price frequently.
“As per the industry practice, we can revise the selling price only once in six months. But, every week, the price of boards, paper, polythene sheets, paraffin wax and chemicals like sulphur and red phosphorus were increasing,” said S. Lakshmanan, president of the association for Sattur region.
The price of board had increased from ₹35 a kg to ₹70 a kg. Similarly, the price of polythene sheets meant for packing had gone up to ₹185 a kg from ₹107 a kg.
Sulphur that cost ₹24 a kg was now ₹46 a kg; red phosphorus had seen a steep increase from ₹360 a kg to ₹850 a kg in the last two years.
While the selling cost of a match box, containing 30 to 40 sticks, had risen from 45 paise to 56 paise, the cost was increasing every week.
“We are not able to continue supply at the rate we had fixed with the traders due to spiraling price and hence the closure,” Mr. Lakshmanan said.
Stating that most of the raw materials were being imported, he said if the Centre reduced the duty on imports, the price of the raw materials could come down helping the industry to sustain.
The closure would affect ₹2.5 crore worth production each day and thousands of employees would be rendered jobless.
Stating that matches units were labour intensive, Mr. Lakshmanan said that most of the employees of the units were women.
