Raymond dumps Bangalore

Bangalore’s not a neat fit any more for Raymond
The Economic Times


BRAND Bangalore’s emergence as the garmenting hub in the postquota world just took a beating. Textile major Raymond chairman and managing director Gautam Singhania is pulling a plug on investments into Karnataka and Bangalore in particular, citing the deteriorating infrastructure. “We would ideally like to have our apparel facilities in a single hub here, but Bangalore’s infrastructure will not allow us to do that. I would not even dream of driving down to my plants (located just outside the city),” Mr Singhania told ET.

Here is the argument : Raymond cannot halt its plans because Bangalore stopped growing . Raymond’s move comes at a time when Bangalore has been positioning itself as an apparel manufacturing and sourcing hub for some of the world’s biggest

brands. Raymond believes that Bangalore has had enough investments keeping in line with its infrastructure index.
What seems to have irked Raymond and its top brass, among other reasons, is the fact that the state government has failed in its commitment of providing assured amenities when it decided to set up plants in the apparel park at Dodballapur. The company said it had to pour some of its own funds to get some of the essential amenities going there.

Raymond has set up three apparel manufacturing plants near Bangalore — in Dodballapur (suits, trousers and denim) and in Hoskote (shirts) — over the past two years with investments of Rs 100/140 crore employing nearly 4,000 people.
Raymond had identified Karnataka — and centres like Hasan, for instance — for bigger investments in fabric and apparel play, but has now plumbed for centres like Vapi, Kolhapur and Jalgaon.

The state’s failure to hold on to Mr Singhania could be a big blow —more from the employment generation perspective rather than in terms of sheer investment size — as he has been chasing significant opportunities in the fabric apparel space.

“There is so much one can do in this domain, which remains our core area. As a company, we could chart about 50 different projects that we would like to work on,” added Mr Singhania.