Make vaccines available for Noida exporters, urges NAEC

Lalit Thukral, President, Noida Apparel Export Cluster (NAEC) has urged the government to make vaccines available for garment exporters in Noida and Greater Noda who are fast losing business to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam with over 20 per cent orders already been diverted to these countries.

In an Economic Times report,Thukral claimed that international buyers are placing orders with other Asian countries. Some apparel manufacturers have been making PPE kits as a stopgap measure, but they cannot sustain without major international orders. Noida and Greater Noida together have around 3,000 garment manufacturing units.

According to Thukral, many exporters are falling back on PPE manufacturing as a stop-gap activity, while some are just left with no orders to service. Exporters are now finding ways to reassure workers to return to work. NAEC has organized its own oxygen bank and distributed oxygen concentrators.

For workers, NAEC has set up isolation wards and oxygen beds at factories. It has also created a facility for COVID-affected workers to borrow concentrators and return them after use.

It urges the government to make vaccines available for workers, which would give them the confidence to rejoin,he added.