Kiln owners lose cool over costly coal, fear closure

Ludhiana: Increasing coal rates over the last few days have increased the expenses of brick kiln owners, who are now up in arms against the Union government for failing to control the hike. Businessmen say at Rs 22,000 per tonne, the rates have nearly doubled in just a few days and have warned of temporarily shutting down their kilns if the rates aren’t reduced.
Ramesh Mohi, president of the Punjab Brick Kilns Association said, “We are passing through turbulent times as the rate of coal, which is the primary raw material for the kilns, has shot up from Rs 13,000 to Rs 22,000 per tonne, which is almost double.What is even shocking is that there is no basis or logic of this increase, and sadly government is doing nothing to take any action.”
He added they might have to shut down their businesses if rates don’t reduce within a week, as they couldn’t increase prices of bricks and pass on the added burden to their customers.
Brick business is also affected by other factors, including high GST rates.
Gagandeep Singh of Ludhiana Brick Kiln Association said, “Brick kiln manufacturing industry is slowly dying due to the Centre turning a blind eye to our problems. Be it high rates of GST or high rate of labour, despite it knowing everything, the government has failed to act. Same thing happened in the case of artificial fluctuation in the rates of coal, which is a clear-cut case of manipulation, and even then then government didn’t do anything.”
The owners had earlier asked the government to act against the alleged artificial fluctuation in prices, too.
Another brick kiln owner, Kuldeep Singh said, “The hike in coal rates is hitting us very hard, and with every passing day our losses are increasing. At this moment we can not pass on the increase of coal rates onto our customers because we know that this is artificial fluctuation and we should stand up against it. We therefore have decided that we will shut down the kilns temporarily in case the rates of coal do not reduce in next few days.”