India is one of the leading producers of cotton textile in the world. Its annual production of yarn is next only to that of the USA and Russia and its spinning and weaving capacities are only exceeded by the United States and Japan respectively.
Both in terms of output and employment the cotton textile industry still occupies an outstanding position amongst the industries of the country. India is not only self- sufficient in its textile requirements, but exports textile fabrics and ready-made garments to earn valuable foreign exchange.
Historical Development
The first cotton textile mill was started in 1818 at Fort Gloster near Kolkata. The attempt failed and a new mill was started by Bombay Spinning and Weaving Co. Ltd. in 1851. It was a successful adventure which encouraged the Parsi, Bhatia and Gujarati entrepreneurs to invest in cotton textile industry.
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These mills mostly produced yarn to be supplied to China but with the capture of the Chinese yarn market by Japan in 1920 the Indian mills switched over to the production of cloth. After 1858 mills began to be set up in the upcountry areas near the market and cotton growing areas, first in Ahmadabad and then in Kanpur, Nagpur and Solapur, etc.
The Swadeshi Movement, grant of fiscal protection, the loss of the Japanese market and the World Wars provided great stimuli to the industry during 1925-45. The number of cotton mills which was 334 in 1926 rose to 389 in 1939 and 417 in 1945. The production of cotton cloths also increased from 3,668 million meters in 1939-40 to 4,321 million meters in 1945-46.
The cotton textile industry got a severe jolt in 1947 when due to the Partition about 22% of the (long staple) cotton growing area went over to Pakistan whereas 409 out of423 mills remained in India.
The Industry had, therefore, to face serious crisis of shortage of raw material which hindered the growth of the industry. In later years the crisis was met both by increasing the indigenous production and import of raw cotton. After 1960 not only a number of new cotton mills were set up but considerable improvement was noticed in the production of cotton yarn and cloth.
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At present, cotton textile industry is the first ranking industry of the country. With a long history of century and a half its assets are worth more than Rs. 3,000 crores and a workforce of 11.81 lakh ‘industrial workers.
There are in all 1,782 mills of which 192 mills are in the public sector, 151 mills in the corporation sector, and 1,439 mills in the private sector. These mills have 33.80 million spindles, 2, 76,000 rotors and 1, 24,000 looms (as on March 31, 1998). The value of export of textile goods during 2003-04 amounted to Rs.44, 234 crore (cf. 46,279 crore in 1997-98).
In India, the cotton mill industry consists of two sections: (a) spinning mills, and (b) composite (spinning and weaving) mills. There were 846 spinning mills and 271 composite mills in the country on March 31, 1992. Also there are a number of small weaving units with an average of 5-10 looms or with only one loom each. Table 20.1 depicts the gradual increase in the number of cotton mills, spindles and looms from 1854 onwards.