By Krishna N. Das

HINDUPUR, India (Reuters) – India is hoping its labour-intensive textiles and apparel (T&A) companies will help it address a jobs crisis, and has promised to pump about $2 billion into the industry over the next few years to generate more than 1 million jobs.

One-third of the money will be spent on seven Mega Integrated Textile Regions and Apparel Parks, which each cover more than 1,000 acres (3404 hectares).

The government says India’s T&A companies, small and large, are too scattered across the vast country, which delays delivery and raises cost.

At a Dubai expo late last year, a senior Indian textile ministry official https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcdvmfYEk1I laid out the typical cotton-to-clothes network in India:

In the south, cotton is grown in Andhra Pradesh (Telangana) and Tamil Nadu (Tamil Nadu). It goes south to Tamil Nadu where it can be spun into yarn. The weaving takes place in Gujarat and Maharashtra. For garment-making, the fabric goes east to Kolkata and Bengaluru.

Telangana’s cotton is capable of moving thousands of kilometres from its source to reach a T shirt. Bangladesh can only move a few hundred kilometers, but that depends on cotton grown in India and China.

Officials in the Indian textiles industry claim that many firms have moved closer to their raw materials.

This is how cotton can be made into shirts in India using the example provided by Texport Industries. Their buyers include Nautica, Kohl’s Corp (NYSE :), Walmart, Tommy Hilfiger, Tommy Hilfiger, and Kohl’s Corp (NYSE :).

YARN

Texport’s main factories are located in Hindupur, Andhra Pradesh. They source white yarn or dyed yarn from vendors in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. They source their supplies from factories anywhere within 350 km (215 mi) or 1,450 km (990 miles) of each other.

FABRIC

To produce yarn rolls for Tommy Hilfiger products, the Hindupur factories employ South Korean knitting machines.

Manufacturers buy tops and shirts made from woven fabric to produce Kohl’s shirts. The fabrics are purchased from many firms located throughout Tamil Nadu.

Garments

The fabric rolls from third parties and in-house are then moved to huge plants near the plant, where thousands of people in eight-hour shifts work with machines, scissors and irons.

Unrolling machines are used for dyed and washed roll. The plain ones can be shaped using machines, in small batches. They are then checked with scissors.

The garments are then sewn by a group of mostly female seamstresses into T-shirts, tops, and children’s jumpsuits. After inspection, they are dried, washed and pressed and tagged before being packed in cartons.