Tirupur garment industry to be hit

TIRUPUR: Garments of export quality, worth several crores of rupees, are likely to stagnate here during the indefinite strike by lorry owners across South India pressing for various demands, including scrapping of collection of toll charges.Acording to C N Ramasamy, president of the Tirupur Lorry Owners’ Association, about 25,000 lorries and nearly 20,000 vans from this district will stop operating from Wednesday midnight.  “Nearly 4,000 lorries, including those with national permit and ferrying building material, local lorries and water tankers, will stop plying in Tirupur city alone.” Lakshminarayanan, teh Vice-president of the Tirupur Export Goods Transporters’ Association, said, “About 900 lorries carrying export garments from Tirupur to various ports will be stopped.” The garment manufacturing industry here has already been reeling under a stagnating inventory,  after bookings for transport to other states dropped.