Representatives from the local industry don’t question the Uttar Pradesh government initiatives to crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses. However, the leather goods industry in India is concerned that a “blanket ban” imposed to all slaughterhouses might affect the domestic supply of raw material.

As some of the illegal units are incorporated in the supply chain of the leather goods industry, some impact on the supply side is expected. Although the full impact of the measures is not known yet, the industry believes there are reasons to be apprehensive. With a decrease in domestic supply, imports will increase to compensate, and with these being more costly an impact on the price of products is expected. As such, the industry is worried with the lost on competitiveness and the impact on the Make in India programme (which has set an ambitious goal for the industry).

According to the World Footwear Yearbook, in 2016 India was the second largest producer of footwear in the world, with a 9.6% share in the worldwide production, corresponding to 2.2 billion pairs. With an important domestic market for its footwear, India only exported 206 million pairs, of which 56% were leather shoes.