Module IV

Overview
The leather and leather products industry is one of Indias oldest
manufacturing industries

About 46 per cent of the production in the sector is exported

It ranks eighth in the list of Indias top export earning industries and
contributes roughly about 4 per cent to export earnings.

The leather industry employs about 2.5 million people and has annual
turn over of Rs. 25,000 crores

2nd largest producer of Footwear and Leather Garments

3rd largest producer of saddlery and harness items.

 The industry is also one with strong links with the
social structure through caste and community.
A large number of people engaged in the
industry (entrepreneurs as well as workers) are
even today from traditional leather working
castes (belonging to the lower castes in the caste
hierarchy) and the Muslim community.
The sector is dominated by small-scale firms
although there also exist a significant number of
medium and large sized firms in all segments of
the industry.
 The industry is concentrated in several leather clusters in
four or five distinct locations in the country.

The major production centers of leather and leather

products are located at
Chennai, Ambur, Ranipet, Vaniyambadi, Trichy,
Dindigul in Tamil Nadu
Kolkata in West Bengal
Kanpur and Agra in U.P.
Jallandhar in Punjab
Delhi,
Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh
Bangalore in Karnataka
Mumbai in Maharashtra

Tamil Nadu is the biggest leather exporter (40%) of the

country and its share in Indias output on leather products
is 70%
Structure of Leather Industry
The units are generally spread across large, medium, small and household units with the
small and household units contributing almost 80% of the production.
Large and medium units are generally tanneries or either big companies which are
involved in manufacturing of footwear.
India is the ninth largest exporter of leather and leather products.Several
International brands import leather and leather products from india
 Leather Export
Top ten Indian leather exporters

Tata International Ltd.

Florind Shoes Ltd.
Punihani International
Farida Shoes Ltd.
Mirza Tanners Ltd.
T. Abdul Wahid & Company
Hindustan Lever Ltd.
Super House Leather Ltd.
RSL Industries Ltd.
Presidency Kid Leather Ltd.
 Indian leather industry - Investment
& Sales

The ratio of investment : sales value is 1: 2.25,

which is very low when compared to other
industries.
The main reasons reported for under utilisation
of capacity are raw material shortage, high price
of raw materials, lack of modernisation, financial
constraints, power constraints and stringent
environmental regulations.
 Structure of industry & production
process
The leather and leather products sector consists
of the following activities:
raw material production, i.e., carcass collection and
flaying,
production of leather from the raw material, i.e.,
tanning,
manufacture of leather products from finished leather.
Carcass collection and flaying are dispersed across
rural and urban areas all over the country
Tanning and product making have come to be
concentrated mostly in urban centres in the form
of industrial clusters.
 Raw material Production
The first stage in the chain is the production of raw hides and skins from either dead or
slaughtered animals.

The major species of livestock that supply hides and skins to the leather industry are
cattle, buffaloes, goats and sheep.

India has the largest livestock population in the world, accounting for about 15% of the
worlds population of cattle, 56% of buffaloes, 20% of goats and 5% of sheep.

Raw material availability and quality are one of the main constraints that the sector is
faced with in an overall sense.

low rate of recovery

the tools and methods of primitive in general and affect the quality of the tanned hide
that is produced.

Methods of curing are also traditional

 Problems faced by the industry
poor quality of raw material due to the low level of health
as well as poor living conditions of animals, decay of hides
and skins caused by delays in processing and high prices
due to high transportation costs
unemployment among trade leather working communities
and artisanal migration to urban and semi-urban areas and
concentration of pollution loads in the urban clusters
where the investment necessary to deal with it is extremely
heavy.
vegetable tanning is the long time taken for tanning the
hide. Improved methods for vegetable tanning have been
developed by the Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI),
Madras but these have not yet become popular.
Government Policies