T-shirts from India’s Tirupur to Qatar World Cup
The cheer of the World Cup in Qatar is reverberating far away in India where a section of villagers were engaged in making T-shirts, tracksuits and caps and exporting them to Qatar for the Fifa World Cup which kickstarted on Sunday.
Tirupur in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has emerged as a knitwear cluster and has today emerged as a wholly transformed global apparel manufacturing hub in the country.
It is not only Tirupur, which is benefitting from the export of sportswear to the 2022 World Cup venue, but the ports in the neighbouring states, used for the export of the consignment, hugely benefitted.
According to media reports, some 17 garment consignments were sent to Doha from Kerala’s Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) from October 1 to November 12.
According to a senior officer of CIAL, the export of consignments helped the local garment exporters.
“Even though temporary, as the supply would stop after the game is over, there is cheer among the garment companies in Tamil Nadu’s Tirupur and exporters in Cochin,” the official said.
Tirupur has set a precedent by emerging as a truly sustainable global apparelmaking hub. The knitwear cluster in southern India has today emerged as a completely transformed global apparelmanufacturing hub in the country, an ANI report said.
The Tirupur project has set an environmental benchmark for other operators by adopting a policy of Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD).
“For the last 10 years, we have been strictly pursuing our ZLD model, and along the way, we have also taken up multiple projects aimed at reducing our carbon footprint significantly. As a green cluster, we have gone much ahead,” said the report quoting A Sakthivel, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations; chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council and founding president of TEA.
The export of sportswear to Doha for the World Cup has generated hope among the garment workers in Tirupur as they are looking for government support for other such opportunities globally.