JK: Pencil factories take a beating due to schools shutdown

Kashmir's Pulwama and Anantnag district together have 17 pencil factories as the poplar wood required for pencil making is mostly grown in Pulwama. These factories supply 90 percent of the raw pencils to India and foreign countries.

Srinagar: The closure of educational institutions due to COVID lockdowns from last two years has dented the earnings of pencil factories in the Kashmir Valley.

Due to online classes, children could not use pencils much which reduced its demand in the market across India.

Kashmir's Pulwama and Anantnag district together have 17 pencil factories as the poplar wood required for pencil making is mostly grown in Pulwama. These factories supply 90 percent of the raw pencils to India and foreign countries.

In the Pencil Village of Ukhoo, Pulwama, the biggest pencil factory has laid off workers as the demand has declined.

The factories employ nearly 3000 workers, locals and non-locals, through out the working season. However, the factories have reduced the number of workers as the pencil production took a beating of sorts.

"Since the demand for pencils has drastically gone down due to closure of schools during COVID lockdown, we had to cut down the workforce. Our production declined to below 30 percent," Farooq Ahmad, manager of the largest pencil factory, in Ukhoo, told ETV Bharat.

His factory, which employs the highest number of workers, now has only 50 workers compared to 200 before lockdown.

A worker from Assam said that many of his co-workers shifted back home as factories closed during the lockdown.

"Our daily earnings declined as we were left without work due to closure of the factories," he told ETV Bharat.

Actually, these factories were hoping that with easing of COVID lockdown, their business would shoot up.

However, the fear of the spread of the Omicron variant has dashed their hopes and owners, as well as workers, are keeping their fingers crossed.