PLACE OF JALANDHAR IN INDIAN SPORTS GOODS INDUSTRY.

Satish Wasan

Project Director

(Buyer Seller Meet)

Walking down the annals of Indian history, Sports goods industry has proud antecedents which go back to more that 120 year. This industry is born out of India’s age old nurtured and mastered skills and today more than 65 % of India’s export of Sports goods, is from Jalandhar alone.

Jalandhar (just 80 km from Amritsar International Airport) is an important supplier of quality Sports goods to more than 130 countries including some of the most developed nations of the world. The Jalandhar based industry is rapidly embracing new technology and adapting its products to keep up with the changing global trends so as to become the most important centre for manufacture.

The Jalandhar cluster is a unique example where, with the passage of time, new items have been added and traditional items continue to have a stronghold.

With more than a thousand enterprises, providing livelihood to more than hundred and fifty thousand people, contributing towards a healthier society, creating place for itself in the world of Sports goods and earning foreign exchange for the nation alongwith catering to a huge big domestic market are some of the achievements of Jalandhar based Sports goods Industry.

THUS Jalandhar has become a gold mine for the machinery manufacturers and raw material suppliers who supply machinery or raw materials to this ever expanding industry.

Sports Goods Cluster of Jalandhar

The Sports Goods Industry cluster of Jalandhar is a unique example of transplanted cluster, where a major segment of an existing cluster shifted lock stock and barrel (the entrepreneurs, the workers and the raw material suppliers) to a new location due to political division of the country in the year 1947.The origin of the Sports Goods Industry in India can be traced back to Sialkot (Now in Pakistan) that was the Sports Goods Production centre in pre-partition days.The Industry was founded by Sardar Bahadur, Sardar Ganda Singh Oberoi in the year 1883 on 13^th April at Sialkot and Sports Equipment became the first Indian Industrial Products to be exported in 1885. The items taken for manufacturing in the beginning were tennis, footballs, cricket bats, balls and field hockey, with passage of time new items were added and industry at Sialkot progressed and people flourished beyond imagination until the division of the country checked the boom.The sports Goods Industry is located in two localities in the city Basti Nau and Basti Daneshmandan. Now with the growth of the Industry it has spread to adjoining areas of Nakodar Road, basti Sheikh Road, Industrial Area, Sports Complex on Kapurthala road and G.T Road towards Amritsar. The skilled workers engaged in this industry are the most important parts for the production and are settled in Bhargav Camp, Gandi Camp, Basti Guzan, Basti Sheikh and Basti Daneshmandan, adjacent to the manufacturing unit. The entrepreneurs setting up modern units with mechanized production systems are shifting to open space with more area to achieve better results and are away from crowded localities. However the network of the traditional business process is so strong that almost all these units have either their offices or some production facilities in Basti Nau, Basti Daneshmandan in order to remain in physical touch with the traditional locations .