Marble industry of Rajasthan hit by recession

Kishangarh (Rajasthan), Nov.24 : The ongoing recession has bruised the real estate sector and the marble industry of Rajasthan.

Kishangarh, which was a leading town in marble processing till recently, has been forced to bear the brunt of recession.

Hundreds of marble miners and processors here have been affected by stagnancy.

According to the Kishangarh Marble Industry Association, the downward trend has resulted in sales falling by 10-15 per cent. Quarry owners and processors of marbles, granites and other stones fear that the global recession can drastically affect their business.

"The impact of slowdown has come on real estate. All the big players have stopped taking new projects and they are only concentrating on existing projects and not any new ones," said R. K. Gupta, the Vice President of R. K. Marbles in Kishangarh.

"Now everyone is worried about the continuation of existing projects," Gupta added.

Over the past four decades, Kishangarh, the tiny town of Rajasthan had become a leading center for marbles in entire country.

"We have reduced the cost of our marble and are struggling keep our industry alive," said Jai Narayan Agarwal, the President of Kishangarh Marble Industry Association.

"Workers won't be working for less salary. We can retrench five to 10 per cent of workers. We will start using blade that will cost us two lakh rupees whereas earlier we were using blades that cost us 400,000 rupees. We have tried to reduce the price of marble like this. We are fighting against recession," said Jai Narayan Agarwal.

The marble industry in Kishangarh witnessed growth rate of five per cent prior to the global recession. Around 4,000 people are directly employed in it while another 15,000 persons are engaged in downstream activities of marble industry.

Over the past couple of years major processors in Kishangarh had also taken up branding of their products. y Lokendra Singh

ANI