A miracle called Tirupur!
370)this.width=370">One look at the unruly traffic, the noise, the pollution and the dusty, dug-up roads and you could be forgiven for wondering if you are in one of the many such small towns that dot the Indian landscape. But you couldn't be more wrong.
This place is pretty special, although there is no indication to the fact that it is one of the largest foreign exchange earners for India. Or that the biggest global brands get their garments made in this small city and that the garments made here are sold in the largest retail stores across the world.
Welcome to Tirupur (occasionally spelled Tiruppur), a city of around 600,000 people in Tamil Nadu. It has a population of over a million in the urban agglomeration and has been registering an annual growth of 30 per cent since 1998.
This city exports knitwear worth Rs 11,000 crore (Rs billion) (Rs 110 billion) a year but it has no airport -- the nearest one is in Coimbatore (50 km away) and the nearest seaport is in Chennai.
The first stop for any international buyer of Indian garments is Tirupur. Buyers from 35 countries frequently visit Tirupur. Tirupur can deliver customised samples in less than 12 hours; half a million pieces in a matter of days.
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Image: A worker arranges coloured skeins of yarn on a roof at a hand-dyeing factory.
Photographs: Reuters
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