Coimbatore Day I Coimbatore’s industrial journey began more than a century ago

Coffee curing yards, textile mills, weaving sheds, and leather godowns marked Coimbatore’s industrial landscape more than 100 years ago.

Coimbatore region, especially Avinashi (then Coimbatore district) and nearby areas, had vast tracts of land under cotton cultivation. According to the Southern India Mills’ Association, Cambodia cotton was grown on nearly 3.5 lakh acres in 1925-26 in Coimbatore region.

The first textile mills - Coimbatore Spinning and Weaving Mills - was started in 1888 at Sukrawarpet and it was popularly known as Stanes Mill. Sir Robert Stanes also started Mall Mills in 1900 for weaving fabrics in Coimbatore.

A.V. Varadarajan, former president of the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association, said that for the first 40 years, Coimbatore had mainly textile units. It was in the 1930s that the foundries started coming up. In the 1930s, small workshops to repair the textile machines and agricultural equipment were operational in Coimbatore. With starting of technical educational institutions, Coimbatore started developing in the engineering sector too, he said.

C.M. Ramachandran Chettiar, known as Kovai Kizhar, writes in ‘Idhuvo Engal Kovai’, that the second textile mill came up in 1906. Over the next few years, Coimbatore had 21 mills with 3.8 lakh spindles, spinning two to 100s count yarn. The units employed nearly 21,500 workers. Even before independence in 1947, Coimbatore sarees and “urumal” were shipped to Sri Lanka also for sales. Processed leather was exported from here, he writes. Coffee curing, machinery repair and automobile repair sheds were present in the city.

‘SIMA 75, A Journey Through 75 Years’, a book brought out by the Association, says that commissioning of the Pykara hydro electric project in 1932 gave Coimbatore abundant electricity supply and industrial growth took off in the 1930s.

Machinery that were imported became cheaper during the Great Depression and Coimbatore’s industrialists imported machinery at low prices and set up composite textile units.

Though technical people were not initially employed at the foundries in Coimbatore, the children of those employed in these units started pursuing engineering education at the institutions that were started here, and Coimbatore began getting technical people, leading to the growth of textile and engineering industries, says Mr. Varadarajan.

Published - November 22, 2024 09:41 pm IST