Karnataka

In danger of losing its glory

Chitradurga: Just about a decade ago, the undivided Chitradurga district was known as the Manchester of Karnataka for having a number of textile mills and producing large quantities of cotton.

The district, which has a century-old cotton industry, has been affected by low production levels.

The main cause of decline is the pest infestation in the past decade. The other reason is the increasing costs of labour and inputs, which have forced farmers to go in for alternative crops such as maize and sunflower.

“Frequent pest attacks and expensive pesticides have forced farmers to rethink their strategies as they were losing income as well as interest in the crop. This resulted in a sharp decline in cotton production,” said G.H. Tippareddy, former MLA and owner of ginning mills.

He said diminishing production had directly affected cotton mills and textile industries, which were unable to procure adequate raw material. He said the undivided Chitradurga district had 15 ginning mills and seven textile and yarn industries. These industries were employed over 25,000 people, mainly from rural areas. Till 1998, when Chitradurga was bifurcated to form Davangere, the district had two cotton producing centres: Harihar taluk (now in Davangere) and Hiriyur taluk (in Chitradurga).

According to sources in the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee, 10 years ago, the APMC was receiving 5,000 bales of cotton annually (one bale contains two quintals of cotton) from places such as Belgaum, Raichur and Ranebennur, besides Chitradurga.

Presently, the APMC was receiving only 500 to 1,000 bales a year, as cotton farmers were finding maize and sunflower more profitable and less laborious to cultivate.

Mr. Tippareddy, who sold his textile mill years ago, said that Chitradurga and Davangere had less than six major mills now.

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