In India the Ready Made Garment manufacturing industry dates back to the 1960s. That was the time few entrepreneurs started sewing and exporting garments in a small way, particularly to UN sponsored programmes and the USA.
The beginning was humble, wherein the production used to take place in Jhuggi’s of Delhi and basti’s of Bombay. Later on some businessmen started small production centers in Bangalore.
The machines were foot pedal operated single needle lockstitch type. Button holes and button attachment were done manually. The production was slow and the quality was not known. Today the industry has developed into a sophisticated corporate houses with state-of -the -art machines and well trained manpower complemented by productivity norms and quality standards of Six Sigma. The investment levels are talked about on Crores of Rupees and the manpower employed in each unit van'es between a few hundreds to a few thousands.
In the manpower development for the industry, labour moved from the agriculture to this industry. The basic skill levels have been accordingly upgraded with Computer applications like CAD/CAM, Auto Cutters, Programmable Sewing machines etc. Despite all these developments, the share of the RMG exports from India in the world trade is just about 2.5% . This is mostly due to the fact that the productivity per machine is one of the slowest amongst all the manufacturers.
Participants