Surat, the biggest man-made fabric (MMF) hub, with the daily production pegged at 3.5 crore meters contributes 40 percent of the country’s man-made fabric demand after saris and dress materials is gaining popularity for its disposable beach wear fabrics.

The fabrics are made from second quality yarn and are available on dirt cheap prices of less than Rs 20 per meter. A wearer can dump the clothes and there is no need to re-use them. Around 40 lakh meters of low-cost fabric is manufactured per day for beach wear. The beach fabric turnover

per annum is pegged at Rs 700 crore.

The low quality use-and-throw printed fabrics manufactured in the city are exported to United States of America, Brazil, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia and Indonesia where they are used for bikini tops and swimwear by people visiting the beaches. The low-cost fabric is exported via Delhi and Mumbai to various destinations around the world.

Devkishan Manghani, chairman of textile committee, Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that the beach wear fabric trend has started two years ago. The cheap quality fabric looks very attractive on the seashore.

Vaibhav Arora, director of a mill said that they are into manufacturing of beach wear garments of high quality fabrics. Most of their beach wear garments, including printed Kaftan dress, beach dress, print dress, are exported to Australia. Their price range starts from Rs 500 per piece. Low cost beach fabric has a different class altogether. They are used as shorts and bikini tops on seashore.

Pramod Chaudhary, chairman of a textile group, said that they manufacture low cost fabric for beach wear. The fabrics are printed at their facility in Pandesara. They manufacture around 20,000 meters of fabrics every day and they are exported from New Delhi.

According to Ritesh Jain, a fabric exporter, beach wear low cost fabric is being manufactured for the last two years in Surat. In a year, beach fabrics worth Rs 50 crore are exported by them to Indonesia, Australia and Brazil.