Karur District Profile and Industrial Potential: Madurai Machan reports

Karur Profile: near-by district of Madurai

Karur is exactly located at the center of the tamil nadu state. You will be amazed to see the amount of export Karur does in a year and to the places in different parts of the world. I was stunned to read that Karur exports to Walmart, IKEA, Target etc., 90% of the buses in South India are built in Karur!!

-Madurai Machan!

Karur Economy

Agriculture

The main crops are Paddy, Banana, Sugarcane, Battle leaf, Grams&Pulses, Topicco, Kora grass, Groundnuts, Oilseeds, Tropic-Vegetables, Garland Flowers, Medicinal Herbals etc.,.

Home textiles

Karur is famous for its home textiles. Karur has a niche in five major product groups — bed linens, kitchen linens, toilet linens, table linens and wall hangings. Overall Karur generates around Rs.6000 crores ($1200 million dollars a year) in foreign exchange through direct and indirect exports. Allied industries like ginning and spinning mills, dyeing factories, weaving etc employs around 300,000 people in and around Karur.

On the international textile map Karur has become synonymous with hand-loom “made-ups” first as Tirupur in the hosiery product. The weaving industry came to Karur from Kerala and has earned a reputation for its high quality hand-loom products today. Hand-loom Exports from Karur began on a modest scale with just 15 exporters in 1975 and today Karur has 1000s of exporters and the products are supplied to world leading chain stores like WalMart, Target, IKEA, Ahlens etc.

The hand-loom products being exported have been broadly classified under three heads viz., kitchen, bathroom and bedroom furnishing items. Some of the hand-loom made-ups exported from Karur are Bedspreads,Sheet sets, Towels, Floor rugs, Tea towels, Napkins, Aprons, Kitchen towels, Pot holders, Plate mats, Bathmats, Tea mats, Curtains, Pillow, Quilt covers, Shower curtains (above 500 classified verities).

Paper

TNPL is promoted by the Government of Tamil Nadu with loan assistance from the World Bank. Today TNPL is the largest producer of bagasse (sugarcane waste from Sugar mills) based paper in the world and the 2nd largest paper producer in asia. TNPL produces 230,000 tons of Printing & writing paper and consumes 1 million tones of bagasse every year.

Bus body building

Karur is a renowned centre for bus building industries. This is a unique feature of Karur and almost 90% of south Indian private bus bodies are being built here.And also Karnataka government buses. The total business is estimated to be around Rs.750 crore per annum.

Cement

Karur is also home to Chettinad Cements. It has an installed production capacity of 600,000 tons per annum, with another 1.1 million tons expansion in the pipeline.

Sugar

EID Parry has a sugar factory in Pugalur, Karur. It has a capacity of 4000 TCD per year. It also has a 22 MW co-generation Power plant, with TNPL.

Banking

Karur is the home town of India's oldest private scheduled banks, The Karur Vysya Bank and The Lakshmi Vilas Bank.

NYLON NETS

HDPE filament and associated product manufacturing. Its mainly for the fruit fields of Himalayas & north-east. Above 50% of nylon nets in India are made in Karur.

GEM STONES

The Karur belt also produces some very good Cats eyes, Feldspar, Moonstones, Aquamarines, Quarts, Sapphires, Jasper and beryls.

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