TALE OF TWO STATES: WHAT NUMBERS TELL US

10 years on, the bifurcation has worked well for Telangana, but Andhra Pradesh finds itself in a financial quagmire

- N Madhavan

Power looms are noisy and the sound, more than 100 decibels that their rotating and sliding mechanical parts make, overwhelms when one enters almost any street in Sircilla. This small town, with a population of just 92,910, about 120 km from Hyderabad, has as many as 30,352 weaving units. Most of them are small; operating inside weavers’ homes, they produce sarees and polyester cloth.

A visitor to the town 20 years ago would not have received a similar welcome as weavers then were in deep distress. With falling orders, high yarn prices, rising power costs and cheap imports, they incurred losses and piled up debts. As machines remained idle for most days, they were unable to repay the debts and many committed suicide. Others chose to migrate elsewhere in search of menial jobs.

Things have changed since 2016. Weavers are back in business, thanks to large orders from the government of Telangana. Between 2016 and 2023, the state procured 58.56 crore metres of cloth valued at ₹2,758 crore. They also get power and yarn subsidies.

“I finally repaid last year the ₹5 lakh debt that I had taken nine years ago," says Gajula Mallesham, who operates 10 looms in his house. “We went through hell. Things are better now," he adds.

This transformation has triggered a reverse migration. Workers from Jharkhand and Odisha have found jobs in these weaving units and in the textile and weaving parks the state government has set up in the town.

Sircilla is the constituency of K.T. Rama Rao, working president of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Telangana’s ruling party, and son of chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao.