Garment factories in Bengaluru resort to retention by restriction
Karnataka Today|November 2016 - 1st Anniversary Special Issue
We all enjoy shopping for clothes. But the ready-mades we buy at high end outlets hide the grim reality of the people who make them. It’s a universal fact that retention of key personnel and cost control is crucial to competitive success. However, garment factories appear to have crossed the line in pursuit of these objectives, as this story by Raina Paul & Elizabeth Mani informs us.
- Raina Paul & Elizabeth Mani
Garment factories in Bengaluru resort to retention by restriction

Shradha is a young girl, 17 going on 18, from village Bhanipanna in Odisha. At the age of 14, she took up a job in Shahi Exports, a manufacturer and exporter of garments.

Shradha remembers travelling around Bengaluru with her brother when she first came to the city. She recalls a visit to the Lalbagh Botanical Garden. “I like travelling. When I first came to Bengaluru, I visited Lalbagh. It was beautiful,” says Shradha (name changed). That was then. Not now.

Life has changed for the teenager. These days she’s only permitted, by order, to go to the Hosur road market in the city. Moving out of her hostel “at will” is not allowed. Got a problem, go home. Period. “We are allowed to go to the market from 11 to 3 on Sundays only, the only day and time we are allowed outside the hostel,” says Shradha

Shahi Exports has manufacturing facilities in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Shimoga, Hyderabad, Salem, Tirupur and many other places. It has a workforce of 90,000. The company produces men’s shirts and T-shirts, lady’s tops, men’s and ladies’ trousers and kid’s wear. It makes millions. It also claims to produce garments for a number of national and international brands: Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Gap, J C Penney, Mexx, Benneton, Decathlon, Esprit, WalMart, Liz Claiborne, Phillips Van Heusen, Ralph Lauren, Sears, Target, Tommy Hilfiger and H & M.

The girls go through a training phase of three months when they join the company. Training includes stints in the cutting, levelling border, quality control and washing sections. Each section is headed by a female supervisor. They are given a target of manufacturing a hundred garments per day.

Shradha is not the only one who has left home to work for the company. Many like her work for minimum wages, living miles away from home, unaware of the millions of dollars that their work garners for these big businesses.

この蚘事は Karnataka Today の November 2016 - 1st Anniversary Special Issue 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

この蚘事は Karnataka Today の November 2016 - 1st Anniversary Special Issue 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

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