Leather Wear

The leather industry comprising of tanning & finishing, footwear & footwear components, leather garments, leather goods including saddlery & harness etc. segments is the fourth largest foreign exchange earner for India. It has around 7% share in our exports.

India has 10% of world's hides & skins but it has only 4% share in the leather and leather product trade worldwide. Exports from this industry have increased to Rs 5778 million in 1996-97 from Rs 3758 million in 1992-93. Earlier India's exports comprised mainly of leather but 90's have seen a boom in export of value added products. But, the last three years have not been very profitable in terms of Indian exports.

On the manufacturing front the value of production is estimated by experts to reach Rs 302,000 million in 2000 AD. Major production centres for leather & its products are located at Chennai, Ambur, Ranipet, Viniyambadi, in Tamil Nadu, Calcutta in West Bengal, Kanpur, Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Jalandhar in Punjab and Delhi.

A study interestingly tells that 50% of the total production is expected to be consumed within the country by 2000 AD. Germany tops the list of importers of Indian leather goods with USA, UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, Denmark, The Netherlands, France and the CIS countries towing the line.

Leather industry which employs about 15 lakh persons directly has footwear as the largest segment.

Indian government has undertaken a National Leather Development Programme with the assistance of UNDP to upgrade the quality, designwise and manufacturing capability wise. This is an integrated programme for development of the industry. Selected institutions, for eg. Shoe Design Centre (for shoes only) at Delhi, are working all over India for the cause.

Leather industry is one of the most polluting industries in India. Tanneries are the main centres for the aforesaid. But gradually individual and common Effluent Treatment Plants are being set up. Dutch government supported Ganga Action Plan is covering Kanpur, the biggest leatherwork centre of Uttar Pradesh.

Council for Leather Export (CLE) reports that leather is damaged during the removal process and that 35-40 % goes waste. The government has recently undertaken projects in Kalyani, Athani, Wardha, Muzzaffarpur and Lucknow for training the workers in tanneries and to prevent flux of labour.This is important as the chunk of output comes from the unorganised, unscientifically managed smallscale & cottage industries.