Tiruppur’s booming business has helped the
once sleepy town change its skyline.
When first generation
reforms ushered India’s
economic boom, Tiruppur was an integral part of the process. It emerged
as the knitwear capital of India and exports from the town touched Rs
1,000-crore mark in 1993. It was a haven for job seekers. Vacancy
boards jostled for place among billboards all over the town. In fact,
Tiruppur had a job for all and sundry, and rarely disappointed anyone.
Everyday people flocked to the town from distant villages hoping to
find a job, and they did. So what was the problem? It was simple.
Despite growth, Tiruppur in those days hardly showed any signs of city
hood. In spite of making vast strides in business, the town had serious
trouble in shaking off its humble roots and move ahead. It seemed
Tiruppur was too modest to show off its wealth. Its appearance hardly
showed any signs of growing prosperity. There were no good hotels and
people faced a tough time finding a nice restaurant. Foreign buyers
stayed in coimbatore, about 60 km away, and made daily trips to
Tiruppur to do business. The roads were awful, ridden with potholes.
The river Noyal flowing through the town presented a dismal picture,
with dyeing units discharging their untreated effluents into it. The
groundwater was polluted which led to a severe water scarcity in the
town. Water had to be brought in from neighbouring villages. It was a
common sight to see long queues on the road, with women lining up with
empty pots waiting for the arrival of water tankers. Talk to the local
people about the town’s growth and they would tell you how Tiruppur was
a village hardly four decades ago. “In those days, everyone cultivated
cotton. As kids, we used to run around in those fields, listening to
the chirping of birds,” garment exporter Raja M Shanmugham is nostalgic.
But slowly, Tiruppur developed
an impressive
picture that many claimed was postcard material for foreigners. The
whole character of the town changed. In fact, it was upgraded from a
municipality to a corporation in December 2007. Today, new Tiruppur is
best reflected in its fastchanging skyline and jetset life. Several
multi-storeyed buildings, residential apartments and shopping complexes
have been constructed in the last few years. Tiruppur has embraced
modernity with élan. The latest SUVs plying on the roads,
restaurants, hotels, banks, ATMs, supermarkets and consumer durable
stores, have given a modern look to the city. “There are three star
hotels and eight medium budget hotels in Tiruppur, where foreigners
prefer to stay. Five of them came up in the last three years,” says
Raaman Ramanath, general manager at Hotel Maniam Classic.
Restaurants have mushroomed all over. Most seem to have spent a fortune
in doing up the ambience of the place and offer great food with
excellent service. “The business is good. People have the money to
spend here,” says M Riaz Ahmmed. He is in-charge at the Mayura Abiruchi
multi cuisine restaurant, overseeing a crowded lunch hour business.
Garments for leading international brands like Nike, Cutler & Buck,
Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger are manufactured in Tiruppur. The export
rejects find their way into the domestic market. A whole street in
Khaderpet near the railway station is lined with shops selling these
garments — T-shirts, vests, briefs, panties, pyjamas, pullovers etc —
in wholesale and retail. Not just domestic buyers, a large number of
Nigerian migrants have settled in the town, only to procure the
rejected products from export stores and air freighting them to their
country via Mumbai.
Tiruppur remains the favourite of job seekers. People come from
Coimbatore and Erode — about 50 km away — to work in Tiruppur. Thanks
to surplus jobs, there are many double income families among the
working class in Tiruppur. “We earn about Rs 8,000 per month,” says
Indrani, who works in the ‘checking’ section of a garment factory in
the Netaji Apparel Park, where 52 garment companies are housed in a
166-acre site. Her husband works as a tailor in the same company. Most
companies follow the system of weekly wages in Tiruppur, which is what
the workers want. The Sri Kannan Departmental Store, spread over 2.4
lakh square feet, one of the largest of its kind in the state, is a
well known landmark in the town. The store’s deputy general manager, P.
Thangadurai says the business is booming and helping the company rake
in decent profits year after year. “Our customers come from all
sections of society. There is lot of money flowing in Tiruppur and
people here don’t hesitate to spend,” Thangadurai told TEHELKA.
THE TOWN has one of the highest density of ATMs
and banks in Tamil Nadu. According to a banker, there are about 90
branches belonging to some 40 banks operating in a town which has a
population of just around eight lakh. Tiruppur’s changing lifestyle is
a statement of the town’s growing confidence, reflective in its Rs
11,000 export figure (it is, in fact, the Tiruppur Exporters
Association’s (TEA) turnover in 2006-2007). TEA has set an export
target of Rs 20,000 crore by 2012. The biannual India Knit Fair held in
Tiruppur continues to attract prospective international buyers. “The
response to the fair is improving each year,” says K. Vasanth Kumar,
coordinator of India Knit Fair Association. The event has brought in a
bit of glamour to Tiruppur, with fashion shows featuring top models
becoming a regular part of the fair since the last few editions.
With such growth, water supply would have been a natural crisis zone
but it is not, thanks to a Rs 1,100 crore project that brings water to
the town from the Cauvery about 55 km away. What remains a major
concern, though, is the issue of pollution caused by the dyeing and
bleaching units, an essential component of the Tiruppur’s export
industry. The Noyal is virtually dead, ground water has been polluted
and there’s practically no agriculture in the vicinity of Tiruppur.
Environmentalists say the common effluent treatment plants set up by
the dyeing units have not solved the problem. But TEA president A.
Sakthivel says the problem would be solved when they implement the
marine discharge project to treat effluents. Everyone believes him.
After all, he is one of the biggest faces of Tiruppur’s growth.
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