School-uniform stitching unit for trans-Yamuna schools

This small factory makes school uniforms in fixed designs and sizes: shirts, trousers, skirts, pinafores, tunics and winter blazers. It sells in bulk to uniform shops, which stock the patterns of nearby schools, and refills them during the rush before the new session.

Readymade garments are Shahdara's One District One Product, and the old quarter has many tailors and small stitching units. Most of them do piece-rate job work for traders. Uniforms give a unit its own steady product, because a school's design usually stays the same for years. Shahdara and the districts around it have a great many schools, and shirting and suiting cloth is sold wholesale in Chandni Chowk, just across the river.

You need a rented hall, industrial sewing, overlock, buttonhole and button-fixing machines, a cutting table, a pressing area and GST registration. The hard parts: most sales come in a few weeks before April, so you must buy cloth and stitch stock months ahead with your own money; shops often pay late; and leftover stock in one school's colours sells only to that school's parents, so it ties up cash until the next year. Many shops have old suppliers, so win them with better fit and quick refills.

Visit uniform shops in winter with samples and a size chart, before they order for the new session.