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View of glass industries in Firozabad | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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The glass industry was limping back to normalcy post-pandemic. Recent hiccups like the recent trade war triggered by the US and the increase in the cost of raw materials arriving from China were bad news | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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The war has completely shattered people. Traditional craftsmen and industry players say it will take them six-eight months to mitigate the losses incurred in the month of March alone because there won’t be an uptick in orders immediately | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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As soon as the war began, commercial LPG cylinders went missing from Firozabad, even from the black market. | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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Kushwaha Nagar area of Firozabad is home to more than 400 craftsmen, flame workers to be specific. These craftsmen, who form a large chunk of the unorganised sector, use flames fuelled by oxygen and LPG to melt and shape glass rods at high temperatures—the technique of manipulating molten glass directly in the flame enables the creation of intricate items like jewellery beads, small sculptures, decorative pieces, bangles and marbles. Due to the lack of LPG cylinders, there work came to a standstill. | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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The large-scale industries in Firozabad require Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas for production. As soon as the war began, the supply was cut by 20 per cent. These furnaces burn 24x7. The reduced supply impacted the productivity of industries. | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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“We don’t get any concrete information from the government. Ideally, the government should have kept us in the loop from the start. Even if they had decided to reduce supply, we should have been informed so that we could have made alternate adjustments. Financial loss aside, due to the prevailing uncertainty, we are not able to commit to our clients and customers,” says one industry player. | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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Most industries in Firozabad are deserted. A manager in one industry says: “The reason is, work has come to a complete standstill. There are no labourers inside. The industry players don’t want this fact to come out because then they will have to compensate them.” | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
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The hunt for the missing labourers takes us to the Labour Colony. Around 9,000 families of labourers associated with the glass trade live here. Most have been out of work since the war began and are forced to borrow money for survival. | Photo: Tribhuvan Tiwari
