The light comes from hundreds of ceramic kilns firing through the darkness, turning clay into tiles that travel across India and into markets as far as the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. That is both their power and their peril: a kiln mid-fire cannot simply be switched off without damaging the product inside and the machinery itself. Inside the factories, there are no workers manning production lines. At the offices of the Morbi Ceramic Manufacturers Association, the past several weeks have been marked by a quiet, grinding urgency. It is a rare and revealing sight: an industry planning for production in the total absence of fuel.

Source: Mint March 23, 2026 02:07 UTC