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Workers and owners of most of the shoe and other footwear factories at Kaluhati village in the district are passing their busiest days ahead of the forthcoming Eid-ul-Fitr festival.

Sources concerned said consumers’ demand for attractive design and good quality products has been doubled this year.

Kaluhati, a village under Charghat upazila in Rajshahi, has become known as the ‘shoe village’ due to its thriving footwear industry, with many residents involved in shoe manufacturing, primarily leather shoes, and supplying to various districts in the northern region.

The village has gained a new name as the ‘Shoe Village’ of Rajshahi. Most of the shoes coming out of Kaluhati are made of leather. Kaluhati Shoe Association, with around 120 members, puts out 90 percent of its total production in leather, with 10 percent shoes made of jute and rexine.

Currently, more than 5,000 shoe workers are working in the factories while another 2,000 women labourers are making shoe boxes.

While visiting the village, nearly 30-km away from the Rajshahi city, recently this reporter found that the factories are manufacturing adequate finished products to meet the Eid-based demands of shoe and other footwear items in the country’s northwest region.

The village is famous for its footwear products among businessmen from different parts of the country.

It has around 50 shoe factories employing around 6,200 male and female workers. They supply shoes to most of the districts in the northern region.  The factory owners are getting massive responses from all quarters which is a positive sign of furthermore expansion of the business.

Apart from working in the factories, many women have already become small-scale entrepreneurs of manufacturing shoe-packets, bags, key-ring, purse and wallet.

The families are taking advantage of establishing such types of factories with small investment with their family members successfully.

Each of the factories is now functioning round the clock ahead of the Eid although some of those remain idle in other times of the year.

The demand for footwear produced in these factories increased heavily this time in comparison to the past.

Shoe-maker Firoj Ahmed said each of the workers earns at least Tk 15,000 to Tk 20,000 during the Eid season.

‘In Kaluhati, most men worked as sharecroppers or day labourers,’ said neighbour Mizanur Rahman, remembering what the village 35 kilometres from Rajshahi City was like in the 1980s. ‘Most villagers had no land then. They lived in houses of clay and straw; the village had a reputation for harbouring thieves.’

‘It’s a past long forgotten,’ he added.

Today, almost every family in Kaluhati is solvent and self-reliant. Many families which once had next-to-nothing now live in brick homes with electricity. To accommodate visiting bankers, wholesalers and retailers, the village roads are in good repair. ‘It all began with Rokeya Begum,’ said Rahman.

Begum never set out to revolutionise the village economy. At the start of her married life she was a housewife much like any other. Her husband Ekkabor Pramanik was a farmer who spent days cultivating their three bighas of land and worked as a sharecropper.

Theirs were village lives of the common variety, and it lasted until the day 35 years ago when Pramanik fell from a mango tree. Including a broken leg and hip, injuries were serious.

Talking to BSS on Thursday, Abida Sultana, owner of a packet and box factory, said their goods are sold in both wholesale and retail markets. She said: ‘We receive more orders in the Eid season.’

Morjina Begum, 41, wife of Faraj Ali, has been working at Konica Shoes Factory for more than seven years. She earns Tk 350 to Tk 400 every day. She also operates a factory named ‘Bhabna Bag and Box’ in her house, employing 22 other women.

She initiated the business with a primary investment of Tk 20,000 around three years back and now her capital investment stood at above Tk 3 lakh.

Additional 2,500 labourers remain engaged in various works like designing, sewing, cutting, sole making and painting,’ said Sohel Rana, general secretary of Kaluhati Shoe Industry Owners Cooperative Limited.  Abdul Mannan, president of the association, said their business is facing competition due to the imported footwear.

He also said the shoes and sandals manufactured in the village have earned fame throughout the country.

‘We are supplying products of at least 40 designs to most of the districts in Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions and some districts in Khulna division at present,’ he added.