Going around the town of Kancheepuram-the onetime capital ofthe Pallavas-one can see magnificent temples like the Kamakshi Amman, whichrivals the best of Madurai's temple architecture and is associated with theAadi Sankaracharya of the 1st millennium CE. Over hundreds of years, the Godshave presided over saree creations no less splendid. Kancheepuram accounts foraround Rs.200 crore worth of silk saree business in the country, and is by farthe largest such cluster in India. The town is dotted with silk shops belongingto the 75 weaver's cooperatives or private players like Nalli, Kumaran andRMKV. The cooperatives provide the silk yarn and zari to the weavers, who thenturn them into exquisite creations. Private players have contract looms too.
Times have usually been good for the saree cluster here as their produce hasalways been in high demand. But has the economic downturn has taken away any ofits sheen? No at all, asserts MS Manoharan. "Demand has been robust,whatever happens in the rest of the economy," says Manoharan, whosecompany SM Silk is one of the leading private players in the cluster, withsales of Rs.40 crore annually. Travel down Gandhi Road and all you see in everydirection is silk, silk and more silk. It may be hard to accept that people arestill spending on expensive sarees, but Manoharan says that they indeed are. Healso points out the varieties that are now on offer to entice younger buyerswho once considered the traditional, heavy sarees as unfashionable. At PrakashSilks, owner KN Ishwar Shah explains why that's happening. His team of weaverschurns out not just lighter sarees but also improvises on conventional designs,so new funkier brocades now adorn the silk. The borders today are almost halfof what they normally used to be, come with a spattering of bright colours likeblue, pink, red and velvet, minus the traditional motifs.
Such designs use less zari-a thread made of gold or silverto create intricate patterns-thereby saving costs, and offering margins thatare much higher than the usual 18-22%. Margins are up also due to the use ofcopper in the zari. A traditional zari consists of 0.6% gold and 57% silver,with the rest as silk yarn, informs M Palanisamy, MD of Tamil Nadu Zari Ltd.While 75% of zari comes from Gujarat where it's a cottage industry, the restcomes from the government-owned Tamil Nadu Zari, which is one of its kind inthe country. The silk is mostly sourced from Karnataka, which produces 60-70%of the country's requirement according to an official of the Central SilkBoard. There are others who are using a higher percentage of silver. Forexample, Nalli Silks that does about Rs.450 crores of turnover incorporates a60% silver content in its sarees, says Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetty whose familyfounded the brand in Chennai: "The zari proportion for us is 60% silver,0.5% gold, 23.5% silk and the rest would be other chemicals." And withprices from Rs.6, 000 to Rs.99, 000, demand for its sarees is still strong,claims Chetty.
While smarter blends in the zari are helping producers trim costs, there's arisk to this as fakes abound. "Customers can never tell the difference,and fraudsters are at bay to a large extent," says Palanisamy. Thisprompted the government to install XRF Analyser machines where anyone can getthe silver and gold content of a saree analysed. A single machine costs aroundRs.19 lakh and there are only two of them in the city. This has helped preserveauthenticity of the Kancheepuram saree, which was registered three years agounder the Geographical Indication (GI) Act. The GI status means that any sareesold as a Kancheepuram saree should follow the prescribed weight, quality andzari norms and should be woven in that district only. Anyone selling fakes canbe booked under the Act.
On the design front, both private players and handloom cooperatives areenlisting the expertise of the National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad,and National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Chennai, to churn outdesigns that would appeal to young, affluent consumers.
Arignar Anna Silk Handloom Cooperative with about Rs.30 crore sales last year,prices its sarees the same irrespective of whether they are sold within oroutside. Kancheepuram. R. Tamilarasi, joint director, handlooms and textiles,says that while this impacts profitability it brings in higher volumes tooffset this. "Traditional high-end sarees are still very much in demandbut for less formal occasions the fancier sarees are doing better," shesays. The fancier sarees are the new designs, of lesser weight and six yardslong, in comparison to the nine-yard saree that the bride wears in atraditional wedding. The handloom organisations, depending on their size, have a reach throughout their main customer base, which is Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh.
The reason for the demand being restricted mostly to the people of the above states is that people in the northern states want more ornamentation, lesser weight and more intricate designs, something that the Banarasi silk saree weavers are known for, says D. Thirunavukkarasu, Assistant Director of the Kancheepuram Thiruvalluvar Silk Weavers Cooperative, which had sales of around Rs.15 crore last year.
While exports for Kancheepuram's saree industry have been almost flat at about
Rs.4 crore every year this figure does not reveal the true picture, say both
the handloom associations and the private players. "Most buyers who want
to buy come down to India to feel the saree before they spend on it," says
J. Govindarajan, Sales Manager at Kancheepuram Silk Weavers Cooperative, which
had around Rs.7 crore of sales last year.
However, the US slowdown has resulted in low values of NRI purchases, although
the volume has grown. "They usually come down on business and won't mind
spending a huge amount on silk sarees because they earn in dollars. But because
of the job loss there and uncertainty over future there has been a 5% dip in
NRI purchases," says Chetty, who attracts many of them. In terms of price,
if they bought a Rs.25,000 saree for festivals before, thats come down to Rs.15,000
now. But this has been made up for with the growth in domestic sales. And while
the individual purchases might be lesser, the volumes make up for it.
The coming years could see a shortage of weavers, something that has started to
bite to some extent even now. Palanisamy says that expansion plans might have
to be put on hold as the younger generation is not too keen to get in. Some
weavers are also selling their sarees directly to the customers, something the
cooperatives have come to accept, says Thirunavukkarasu. They are also
migrating to other industries now. Chetty says that the manufacturing units of
MNCs located in the Sriperumbudur belt between Kanchipuram and Chennai offer
them wages of Rs.7,500 a month compared with the Rs.6,000 that weaving a high-end
saree would fetch them. Chetty expects production to dip in the future if this
trend continues. For now, the existing weavers, with average age of 40-45
years, are mostly sticking to the profession.
Some change has come through technology though. Designs are all computerised
and every private player and handloom organisation has its own design unit. The
designs are mounted on the jacquard loom-a mechanical loom invented by Joseph
Marie Jacquard in 1801-that has holes punched in pasteboard, each row of which
corresponds to one row of the design. These rows were earlier hand-made. They
are now fully computer aided designs (CAD), says S. Govindarajan who's the head
designer at Kancheepuram Silk Weavers Cooperative. But this technology upgrade
does not mean powerlooms will be used instead of handlooms. All the players
explain that it is the handloom, which is the USP of the saree. "That is
what makes us what we are," says Palanisamy.
Diversification into garments other than the ubiquitous saree is another trend
that's taking shape. Silk bed sheets and pillow covers are being sold mainly to
the hospitality sector, says M. Gnanamoorthy, director, SM Silks. This has
brought higher margins, he says, and the company has grown by around 30% in the
last couple of years. Owners like him, who are the present generation in
management, are now sporting Blackberry phones and wearing branded shirts, a
sign not just of prosperity but also of technological awareness. With several
enquiries coming from abroad for their sarees, they can't afford to lag behind.
Gnanamoorthy points out that they are using natural dyes as opposed to the
traditional chemical dyes. This, according to him, has earned the company
goodwill among its customers, particularly the more environment conscious ones.
The shortage of weavers may also be a temporary phenomenon. "With a slowdown in the manufacturing and IT sectors, we see some of the young weavers coming back," says Chetty of Nalli Silks. For this town where hope is ever alive, the Gods might just make sure that the town stays immune to economic turbulences.
Written by Anirvan Ghosh and Chandra Ranganathan in Kancheepuram
Originally published in "The Economics Times" dated November 10, 2008
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