5.1 Background
AS OUR CAR bounced along the narrow pot-holed road to Tirupur, a sign Welcome to Banian City greeted us. Banian is the local name for the white vests used mostly by men in India. This sign described what was in store for us in Tirupur. There does not seem to be any activity in the town that is not directly or indirectly connected with the manufacture and sale of banians and T-shirts. The whole world appeared to have discovered Tirupur in the early nineties. The success story of Tirupur, the new boom town, had spread all over. Suddenly many international agencies began to take notice of this little town in the state of Tamil Nadu in the south of India. We had decided to conduct an Industrial Ecology study in Tirupur. The purpose of the study was to see how to apply the concepts of Industrial Ecology in a developing country, where the pattern of industrialization was vastly different from that of a developed country. As we first drove into the town, we wondered what made this place such a success story. The narrow streets were crowded and hardly well laid. There were open drains running along the sides of the roads, carrying filthy, colored water. An assortment of vehicles, trucks, hand carts and bullock carts with their assorted loads of cargo, clogged the streets. Smoldering garbage was dumped on both sides of the road and the stench was hardly bearable. Through one such narrow street we approached our first point of call, which was the Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA). The moment we entered the building of TEA, we started to notice the efficiency which makes Tirupur successful. Professional, well-trained staff mans the plush office. The building itself has all the facilities that an exporter would require, including a well-equipped conference room.
CASE STUDY OF THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN TIRUPUR
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Roads in India
The roads in India leave much to be desired. Transport on the roads