Firozabad Case

Glass Industry of Firozabad

Firozabad's glass house lies shattered. Just a few years ago, the glass products industry in this tinsel town, 40 km from Agra in Uttar Pradesh, was bustling. An estimated 480 small scale manufacturing units were in operation, producing glass beads, bulbs, vases, light globes, chandeliers, tableware, bangles and other handcrafted items. Domestic sales were up and the local manufacturers had their hands full with export orders. The fires in the pot and tank-type furnaces in the glass waste-strewn city seemed never to go out, and the chimneys billowing smoke in the sky confirmed that the town was in business.

Cut to 2007. The fire in a little over 300 glass units has ebbed out. The mud furnaces have crumbled from disuse and the topography resembles a wasteland. Thousands of labourers are jobless as their employers have gone bankrupt. Glass industry estimates suggest that exports have crashed by 50 per cent and the domestic market has dwindled alarmingly. The manufacturers, once-proud owners of large units, look dispirited as they search for alternative means to generate revenue. The city that used to be dotted with skeins of coloured glass has lost its sheen.

Meet Lokesh Agarwal. He sits forlorn in his hole-in-the-wall office at the edge of his vast premises. He would operate what is called the Japanese pot furnace unit (the other two being the open furnace and the tank furnace) and employed 250 people as daily labour. The unit produced lights, tableware and lanterns for the domestic and the export markets.

"We used to make 350,000 glass shells for bulbs every day. My turnover was Rs 2.5 crore a year. That business is over," says a despondent Agarwal. His pot furnace unit now lies in ruins. So what does he do for a living? Here's the irony. He's now importing bulb shells and glass products from China - the country which has brought Firozabad's centuries old cottage industry to the brink of closure - and selling them in Delhi and other...