Underway in a TN small town, three mini revolutions

In Tamil Nadu’s Ambur, a town known as much for its biryani as leather products, a small lane off the under-construction Chennai-Bengaluru highway leads to Aston Shoes. It’s not a company many have heard of, but it has lived up to the ‘Make In India, For The World’ motto for decades. Shoes for some of the world’s best-known footwear brands are made here.Sitting in the conference room on the first floor, Israr Ahmed, director of the Farida Group comprising 11 companies that include tanneries and manufacturing units for shoes and shoe soles, tells TOI how in 1957 his grandfather started a tannery in this Tamil Nadu town. From shipping leather to making leather uppers, to manufacturing the entire range of leather footwear for the world’s leading brands, the 67-year-old group has come a long way. But it’s the future that has Israr excited.“The next 10 years can be much bigger for the company — and the industry — than the past 50 years,” he says. He points to an upcoming facility that will manufacture sneakers exclusively for one of the top brands in the US. Initially, close to one million pairs of shoes of a single design will be produced, with more designs added over time. The order size could also grow in the coming years.“Once they come, they come for the long term and with large contracts,” says Israr of the top global brands that include Nike, Adidas and Puma. The new facility is coming up according to the buyer’s specifications and employees are undergoing training at the foreign partner’s facility. Farida Group currently employs nearly 20,000 workers, of which 95% are women. medium nocaption113630080Another 250-km south, near Perambalur, Taiwan’s Shoetown — the biggest contract manufacturer for Nike — has started a factory with the local Phoenix Kothari Footwear to manufacture for Crocs. “People thought we would take four-five years to build the plant, but we did it in exactly one year and started operations last November with one shed. Now, we are planning to start three more sheds,” says J Rafiq Ahmed, chairman, Phoenix Kothari Footwear.The company has also tied up for sales and marketing of French brand Kickers. Additionally, it is in talks with three large global brands to manufacture shoes for them, while ramping up employment from around 1,100 workers to 7,000.Ahmed has lined up a complete eco-system with “component” manufacturers or vendors who will supply everything, from soles to PU material and laces, in an industrial park for shoes. Four companies have registered, and another two dozen have shown interest, he says. Once fully functional, up to 50,000 workers will be engaged. medium nocaption113367710An Industry In BoomIn the past two decades the shoe market has undergone fundamental shifts. Black colour shoes dominated leather footwear in the past with about 80% market share. Today, brown shoes have a similar share and black is down to 20%. According to industry insiders, brown lends itself to almost infinite shades, which helps match almost any fashion and style.There have been other changes. Water-proof leather, once unthinkable, is now common.A more fundamental shift is from formal wear to athleisure — casual clothing and footwear that combine athletic wear with leisurewear. Footwear in this segment includes sneakers and shoes that balance comfort, functionality and style, conforming to the overall trend of versatile, fashion-forward athletic apparel. The segment of Indians moving from leather to athleisure is the one whose primary reason for picking up a footwear is no longer durability, but comfort.Having focused almost entirely on leather, Indian footwear makers have had virtually no global presence in the athleisure shoe market. That is set to change with Aston’s and Phoenix’s investments that will put ‘made in India’ athleisure shoes on feet around the world. Aston plans to invest Rs 100 crore for 10 million shoes a year.Just like mobile phones, laptops and solar panels, global buyers are looking to diversify their vendor base away from China. Israr says that, in the coming years, as much as 10% of the procurement for sports shoes could move to India. An added attraction for global companies is the country’s large and growing domestic market.“Indians buy an average of 1.8-1.9 pairs of shoes every year; we expect that to rise to 3.5 pairs by 2030,” says Sanjay Leekha, who leads Alpine Group. The company supplies more than 3.5 lakh pairs to Adidas, Reebok and Skechers for domestic sales from its factories in Faridabad and Baddi and is planning to start exports.One of the largest players in the business is Tata International. It supplies to Clarks, Deichmann, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Zara, and Massimo Dutti. Cole Haan is another high-end brand that sources from India. Taiwan’s Hong Fu has announced a Rs 1,000 crore investment and plans to create around 20,000 jobs.After China, India happens to be the world’s second largest footwear producer with a 12% share of global production, manufacturing over 2 billion pairs every year.Taking Jobs To Women And Small TownsEstimates suggest that the leather and footwear sector employs over 40 lakh workers. And the capacity expansions are set to boost employment, especially for women. An exceptional feature of the footwear industry is its high female labour presence. Women workers dominate the shop floor, especially in Tamil Nadu. An estimated 60-65% of the workers in the state’s footwear sector are women.The reasons are clear. Office vehicles pick up workers from home and drop them back. Factories have creches for children and employers often arrange for home tuition for kids as well. medium nocaption113367697Safety officers are available to monitor and listen to women’s complaints and untoward incidents are reported and resolved swiftly, say employers. Apart from lunch breaks, morning and evening snacks are also served and there are short exercise breaks on the shopfloor. “Most of the hiring is through word of mouth. Workers are from nearby villages and have been with the firm for a long time,” says Israr.Podu Mani joined Aston Shoes nearly 18 years ago, soon after her marriage, thanks to one of her neighbours. Her husband runs a ration shop and one of her daughters is a science graduate; the other is training to be a physiotherapist. Having started with a salary of Rs 900 a month, she now takes home Rs 12,300 after contributing towards provident fund and Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).“The factory timings suit me and there is a bus that comes and picks me up. There is a creche here and I get my salary in a bank account on the first of the month,” says K Nivedha, whose job is to check if the shoes meet quality requirements.Over time, workers are promoted. Podu Mani, who started as a cutting operator, is now incharge for shoe uppers.There is continuous training and skilling, too.Rafiq Ahmed of Phoenix Kothari says they are hiring rural folk, several of them farmers, and training them to work on modern footwear shopfloors.Apart from creating world-class products in India, the thriving footwear clusters of Tamil Nadu are quietly scripting two mini-revolutions, which the rest of India is struggling to copy — providing employment and agency to women and taking jobs to small towns and villages.