Textile industry goes on strike over GST

More than 4,000 textiles wholesale, retail shops and textile producers and merchants dealing with yarn in the district closed shutters on Friday as part of a one-day strike called for by the Erode Textile Merchants Association.

The strike was to protest against the increase in GST (goods and services tax) from 5 per cent to 12 per cent. President of Erode Cloth Merchants Association Kalaiselvan said the textile industry and its allied industries into weaving, dyeing, printing and textile trading are already facing problems of yarn price hike and pollution.

Now, he said, the hike in GST would affect the manufacturing and sale of textile goods. In order to draw the attention of the Union government to the GST, the textile industry went on strike, the association president said.