Tirupur, a small township 60 kilometers away from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu is probably the hallmark of the success stories of Indian clusters and is popularly known as Banian City / Knit City. Tirupur has been the centre of textile business since 1870, which catered the mills set up by the colonial rulers to counter the high cost of labor in the European mills, especially that of Manchester. This township started with the production of low valued cotton hosiery items mainly the undergarments during the 1920’s and started with exports from the year 1974.
Tirupur, located on the bank of Noyyal River, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu is the seventh largest city of the state with population of 346,551. The nearest international airport is the Coimbatore Airport. Tirupur is well connected by trains and bus services.
There are around 700 active exporters and 1700 domestic garment suppliers at Tirupur. There are more than 2000 small units, which specialize in knitting, compacting and calendaring, bleaching, dyeing and embroidery, provide support to the manufacturers and exporters. T-shirts, Pullovers, Ladies wear, Polo Shirts, Sportswear, Sweat shirts, Children garment, Nightwear, Home Furnishing and Industrial Fabric are the main products of Knitwear industry of Tirupur.
Today, it is one of the important garment clusters in India, providing employment to more than 3,00,000 people directly and indirectly. It is earning considerable amount of foreign exchange by contributing more than 50% cotton knitwear exports from India. Tirupur mainly exports to European Union, the United States of America, Canada, Japan and Middle East. Continuous business growth, outstanding performance and by taking self initiatives to address issues affecting growth of business on their own without waiting for the Government support are the key factors responsible for present condition of Tirupur knitwear cluster.
Almost every household in the town undertakes some activity or the other that is directly linked to the knitwear industry. The town’s dusty and narrow by lanes, are lined with residence-factories. Most houses have dedicated at least one room to these activities like spinning cotton into yarns, or knitting yarn into fabric, or simply separating and dividing the waste and scrap fabrics back into yarn for reprocessing.
A whole range of industrial units catering to ancillary functions such as manufacture of cartons, polythene bags, zips, buttons, tapes and other packing material has also spawned in a big way. Most Tirupur entrepreneurs accept to cater to the lower end of the market on a contract-manufacturing basis. Large garment export units are mostly owned by a single family.
The nearby areas of Tirupur like Somanur, Avinashi, Palladam and Koduvai are also actively involved in Textile industry. The first three places have lot of power-looms and Koduvai focuses on handloom. The constraints faced by Tirupur in terms of infrastructure and labour problems are leading to the development of industrial activities in the nearby areas/districts.
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