South India is well known for its natural beauty, but along with that also famous for its textile industry. Coimbatore, Tirupur, Salem and Erode, all four major cities of Tamil Nadu have their contribution in the growth of this industry. All these major cities are very much known for different products. Coimbatore, a city residing in the hills of the Tigris, is a second largest in Tamil Nadu. This is also known as a cotton town. Nova is the other name of Coimbatore. It has a flare of cotton production because of the black soil of that land, which suits cotton growing. If Coimbatore is known for cotton production, Tirupur is known for knitting. Tirupur is also known as a knit city. It is 50 km, far away in the east, from Coimbatore. Tirupur has much cotton, ginning factories and has main cotton market of Tamil Nadu. 35 countries are buying from Tirupur, and they are visiting that regularly. Tirupur is the only city which is doing 56% of knitwear export alone. That is the reason why it is known as town of Export Excellence. Tirupur is very near to Coimbatore, and that is an advantage for it. Because of its nearness to Coimbatore, Tirupur gets benefits of cotton growing. The city Erode is known for hand loom weaving and carpet manufacturing. It also has large scale cotton ginning mills. Erode along with Salem is known as the home of textile weavers.
Coimbatore, Tirupur, Salem and Erode, these four are known as textile belt of south India and the export revenue it generates is more than 25,000 crore. In it the share of only Tirupur is 11,000 crore and the expected rise is 20-25 percent. The expected flow of investment is 90,000 crore in this region in various textile activities during next five years. Rs. 50,000 crore will be used only for the textile industry of the Coimbatore region. The future plan is till 2012 with the hope of increase in export and production of textile is 2,70,000 crore and 4,95,000 crore. This belt has 2,000 textile mills, large and small both.
Coimbatore is known as the Manchester of South India. It has above 600 cotton mills which manufacture blended yarns and cotton. The production of fabric is done by 10-15 mills, some of them are Akshay Textiles, Go bald, KPM Textiles, KG Denim, Prime Textiles, Southern Textiles, Hindustan Textiles, Lakshmi mills, Gangster and Premier. Among them, branded ones are very few. Tiber brand is owned by Gangster, Mills, it is a national level brand. Another national level brand is Trigger, which is owned by KG Denim. Most of the Textile Mills of South India have joined South India Textile Research Association, known as SISTRA. This association helps the textile units in research and development. Some companies have their own research and development units. SISTRA works for the welfare of the textile units of this region and submits 2-3 projects every year to the ministry of textiles.
Above 100 mills have closed in Coimbatore and in its suburbs in the last ten years. The reason for this closure is wrong estimates and frequent changes in policies of exports. With the quota system, they have a hope for bright future prospects.
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