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Chapter 3
Typology of Industries
There are more than 100 business and
manufacturing units in Auroville, engaged in different types
of activities. Major types of units are Garment (clothing and
fashion), Food processing units, Leather units, Incense units,
Furniture renovation, Electronic based items, Wood based
items, Cloth accessories, Paper and flower based greeting
cards, Metal based units, Clay based units, Cement based
units. The service and research units are Guesthouses,
Architecture and construction etc.
Typology
Each type of unit makes a variety of
items, which are in the category of fashion, gift and utility
articles. Various types of items made under each category are
as follows-
1) Leather based units make a
variety of items like shoes, sandals, shoulder/travel bags,
garments, beaded leather products, crochet, fancy leather
bags, beaded shoes etc.
2) Garment and cloth based units
make hand-knitted sweaters, ladies and gents garments, ladies
fashion garments, T-shirts, stuffed toys, aprons, children's
clothing, patchwork bedcovers, cushion covers, table linen,
silk painting on cloth. Quilted products, handloom woven
textile and garment in organic and vegetable dyes, sleeping
hammock, hammock chair, cloth bags etc.
3) Electronic and engineering
based units make Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), inverters,
solar charge controllers, electronic generators, computer
hardware and software, software development etc.
4) Wood based units make
carpentry and specialized woodwork including furniture, office
partitions, window and doorframes, gift items, salad bowls,
spoons and other household articles. A few units also deal in
old furniture renovation, antiques restoration etc.
5) Clay based units makes
pottery, stoneware and terracotta items, and handmade pottery,
handmade glazed stoneware/pottery items.
6) Paper and flower based units
make stationery and greeting cards and various paper items.
Varieties of greeting cards are made in Auroville units. These
are pressed flower cards, printed cards and stationery items
and paper products, paper lampshades etc. Apart from this,
they make offset and letterpress printing too.
7) Other craft units makes
incense plus holders, mats, cordials, massage rollers, photo
frames, silver and gold symbols etc.
8) Incense units makes variety of
incenses, perfumed candies, ambient perfumes, natural
essential oils etc.
9) Metal-based units make
cabinets, wind pumps, compressed earth block presses and all
forms of metal work.
10) Cement based units make
precast and prefabricated building materials including
structural components and other accessories like precast
biogas plant unit etc.
Out of the above mentioned manufacturing units, various types
of units studied were garment and cloth accessory based unit,
leather products, furniture renovation, electronic based unit,
wood and craft based units, clay based units, cement based
units, paper and flower based units etc. Out of service units,
food-processing units and guest facilities were studied as
they form part of business units. Food processing units in
Auroville are only a few. Guest facilities are provided in
various ways either they are central facilities or provided by
the communities. There broad classification and other details
dealt are as follows.
Raw material
Industries in Auroville are basically
hand-based crafts and most of the requirements of raw material
are met within Auroville, locally and within the region. Since
the industrial set up is now quite old, some linkages in
services and material transaction has been observed, but the
scale of industries is not large enough to support backward
and forward linkages. Most of the industries do Assembly,
Production, Finishing and Packaging of products for export in
house only. In a few cases of large units, streamlined
production is also observed. Most of the respondents meet
their demand of raw material within Auroville, locally i.e.
upto Pondicherry, or from regional centers i.e. Madras, Salem,
Ambore, Vellore, Coimbatore, Karur, Kumarapalayam etc.
Depending on the type of industry, hinterland for raw material
is different. Some examples are
a) Leather industry
The leather industries get their raw
material i.e. soft leather (Terra-cotta leather) from Madras,
which is a large regional market for this kind. As per the
entrepreneur, mercantile culture of Madras is good and a high
quality of unblemished leather is obtained. Other centers for
leather procurement are Ambore, Vellore but usually not
preferred due to poor mercantile culture of traditional Muslim
leather traders. Pigments to make color and other metal
accessories required, are procured from Madras.
b) Garment industry
Most of the garment units in Auroville
are export oriented and the type of raw material ranges from
Cotton to China silk. Some of the raw materials are imported,
for example, Auromode, a hand painted and printed garment
export oriented unit, import its basic raw material i.e. silk
from China and pigments to prepare dyes from Switzerland. Some
cotton based garment manufacturing and handloom units get
cotton from Madras or Salem and then dye it by organic process
in Auroville or Pondicherry.
c) Food Processing industry
The service units of Auroville, i.e.
Agro-based and food processing units like Jam-Jelly, Marmalade
unit depend on Auroville orchards for Guava, Mango, Rosella,
Hibiscus flowers, Oranges, Citrus fruits, Coconut. Starfruit,
Chiku, Natanga, Lemon etc. When Auroville orchards are unable
to provide adequate fruits, they get them from Pondicherry.
Agriculture in Auroville has been unable to provide enough, so
the bakery gets wheat and maida [fine wheat flour] from
Pondicherry and some fruits from Auroville orchards.
d) Wood base industry
The wood based industries get their raw
material from Acacia and other timber within Auroville. It is
abundantly available due to planned afforestation programs.
The toy factory has used this wood to produce export quality
toys, household accessories, carpentry items, hammock reapers
etc. They also get better quality wood from Pondicherry.
e) Clay based industry
The clay based industries, i.e. pottery
units, apart from using the clay available locally in
Auroville, also imports better quality clay from Gujarat. The
fuel requirement i.e. fuel wood is met within Auroville only.
f) Flower pressed greeting cards
The unit of flower pressed greeting
cards gets flowers and various types of grasses and leaves
from Auroville gardens and the surrounding countryside.
Handmade paper is procured from other units of Auroville and
the Pondicherry Ashram.
g) Electronic based industry
The electronics based industry, for
example Solar converters, Computer manufacturing unit partly
meet their raw material requirements from import and some from
other parts of India and these are mostly export based units.
h) Other units
Incense and perfume manufacturing unit
get their raw material within India and also from abroad.
The furniture unit which exports old renovated furniture gets
old furniture from nearby states (Kerala etc.).
The waste cloth of garment unit is raw material for the
appliqué unit of Auroville (40% raw material i.e. waste
pieces is fulfilled within Auroville).
Some internal linkages within industries have been observed
for items such as Stationery requirement which is fulfilled by
Auroville units. Metal case for products such as uninterrupted
power supply (UPS) are made from the metal based industry or
office furniture requirement is fulfilled by wood based
industries. The waste of wood based units is used as fuel for
the furnace of clay and pottery based unit. Hammock reapers
are made in one unit whereas the others do hammock netting. It
has been mentioned earlier that the seed population of
Auroville and scale of industries are not large enough to
support forward and backward linkage and total
self-sustenance.
Production and Seasonal Variation
Most of the units engaged in export
basically work on the basis of orders and some of them
strictly on order basis, especially Garment industry (Appliqué
work bedsheets, table cloths, ladies fashion garment, cotton
garments, silk garments etc.), Leather industry (Leather
garment, bags and accessories) and electronics industry (Solar
converters, computers etc.). The variations in the 'seasonal
pattern of production' remain constant. They work as per order
in which usually the basic design guidelines are provided by
the client. The pattern of production is as follows –
October to February is very busy, by the end of February,
export orders are finished. Next order of export is placed by
April and production starts by May. March-April is a slack
period whereas May to August is very busy. For the Christmas
season export orders are placed by May or June and for some
cases like Leather garments, goods should appear in the market
by September. Thus for Aurovilians engaged in export. May till
September is very busy. The orders keep coming throughout
winter. In a nutshell, beginning of summer is the period and
winters are busiest. The industries depending on visiting
tourists and sales in boutique have the same pattern of
variation because number of tourists visiting Auroville
reduces in summer and peaks in winter. Even the units having
local markets have reported similar trends: during the summer
they do not get many orders but by September/October they get
fresh orders for Diwali. In the service industry of Auroville,
the pattern of production is also the same, only a slight
variation is found during the summer as the number of visitors
goes down. Some of the industries like pottery making, flower
pressed greeting cards and woodwork (toys. furniture, kitchen
accessories) produce less during Monsoon due to slow drying of
clay and wood seasoning problems.
A few industries build a stock during slack period. Some
exporting units prepare semi finished ingredients from raw
material and a ready stock of semi finished products. For
example, Maroma, the incense unit, prepares the semi-finished
mixture (Agarbatti masala) from raw material, Shradhanjali the
greeting card unit builds a stock of pressed flowers during
the slack period. Some of the industries stock up goods for
the local and national market; however, for export they do not
take risks due to the frequent changes in the design, tastes
and trend in Europe.
Products and their
Unique Selling Proposition [USP]
Auroville products have become a
benchmark of Quality, Innovation and a symbol of Organic and
Environmental friendly processes. Most of the units are
handicraft based and so require less energy, are labour
intensive and depend on individual's artistic capabilities.
Though quality control can be achieved under strict
supervision and by using machines, work done by hand and
hand-crafted can make every product a piece of art and design.
Each product is unique and in some way different from each
other. It is reflected in the high price of the product as
well. Quoting an Aurovilian, who makes pottery, each piece of
pottery and tile is not only a craft but a piece of art as
well (hand painted and designed) .How can you price it?
The prices of Auroville products are high and Aurovilians
agree that they cater to a certain strata of society only.
However, most of the respondents agree that in India, the
demand for quality product is increasing day by day and even
the national market is a huge market, which can be tapped.
As proof of the quality of products so far a majority of
respondent claimed that not a single product exported has been
rejected. Another edge is application of environmental
friendly processes and insistence towards sustainable
techniques of production, for example, organic dyeing, use of
non-hazardous chemicals for bleaching etc. These products
qualify in chemical tests conducted in Europe.
Workspace and Utilization
Apart from a cluster of industries
located in the industrial zone, some isolated units are
located near communities also. Though there is a designated
industrial zone, some units are scattered all over Auroville.
Two major clusters were found in Auroshilpam and Kottakarai
(industrial zone). The source of water is two wells, which is
maintained by Auroville board of commerce (ABC) and shared by
all. Scattered units have to manage their own supply of water
and other infrastructure. Only in one case was home based work
found during the study. In one case, a service unit was
operating from part of a building used for another purpose.
Only a few units surveyed were found to be operating from a
temporary workshops, otherwise most of the units have pucca
permanent workshops with clearly designated zones for storage,
production, assembly, office, parking etc. Industrial
complexes like Auroshilpam and others are well planned
complexes. The size of unit varies from 400 sqm to as small as
of 50 sqm of built-up area. Most of the industries have a
demarcated compound as well. Overall space allocation seems to
be on a higher side.
Employment and Training
As per secondary information, Auroville
employs 3500-4000 people under services as well as in business
and industrial units. Most of them are from the 13 surrounding
villages in the Bioregion of Auroville. About 3000 villagers
are regular employee of various business and industrial units
of Auroville. General trend in employment generated and
training required and given by different units are as follows.
Labour employed
The units in Auroville do not use heavy
machines, power looms or specialized machines and instead use
labour-oriented pedal machines, handlooms, potter's wheels,
etc. The process of production depends on manual labour and
effort. The process consumes less energy and the products fall
within the category of handicrafts. Hence industries in
Auroville are labour-oriented and provide good employment
opportunities in the region. In the cases studied, the total
number of persons employed varies from a minimum of 9 in a
bakery unit (Ganesh bakery) to 160 in Auromode (garment
manufacturing and export unit). A few units employ large
numbers of people, like Maroma (80 workers) and Center for
Scientific Research (70 workers). Other larger units are
Leather (36 workers), furniture (30 workers). Electronic [33
workers], Paper and flower (37 workers) etc. Aurovilians
generally number one or two, basically acting as executives of
the unit, but in some cases there are more, for example, in
Auroville bakery 7 out of the 20 people employed are
Aurovilians. In the solar based unit there are 6 Aurovilians
out of a total of 33 persons employed. In the toy factory
there are 3 Aurovilians out of a total of 15 employed.
Participation of females was found to be very high amongst all
the cases studied. Female empowerment and the suitability of
females in doing specific types of work has already been
discussed. However, some of the units are encouraging female
participation as a policy and one of the units is dedicated to
the development of girl child. 100% female participation in
the production was found in Appliqué unit, Jam-Jelly unit,
greeting card unit and hammock/cloth bag unit. In most other
units, female participation is between 40 % to 70%. No female
participation was found in furniture industry (old furniture,
utensils) or the pottery unit. According to the executives,
these two types of production process are not suited for
female participation. Given the perseverance and deftness
needed in the handicraft-based work like embroidery,
stitching, knitting, flower pressing, sticking, appliqué,
painting etc., women are better at it.
Seasonal variation in employment
The tendency of providing 'Temporary
employment', or 'Hiring and Firing', policy was not used by
any executive of any unit. All the workers are permanent and
since these are craft based units, skilled and experienced
workers are assets for the unit. In two cases part-time
workers are also apart from full time employees. In one case,
viz. the Appliqué unit, apart from having 17 full-time
employee, the unit also takes 33 local village girls on a
contract basis for doing embroidery work thus generating
partial employment for 33 more girls.
Thus the workers in Auroville unit work with a feeling of
social security and a sense of being taken care of.
Subcontract of work to smaller units has also been observed.
Commuting distance
Workers generally come from nearby
villages located in the surrounding area. The maximum
commuting distance for female workers is around 6 kms and the
mode used is cycle. Male workers come from as far away as 10
kms. Some units provide help in purchasing of cycle.
In most cases commuting distance is around 3-4 kms, in some
cases it is 5-6 km.
Wages
Since different units require different
levels of skill, average wages differ accordingly. Depending
on the load of work, different units have different wage
policies. Some are based on unit amount of work performed as
per sqm of cloth stitching or number of pots made etc. Some
are on per day basis and some are given monthly wages also.
The working day usually consists of between 6 and 8 hours, but
at Lotus it is only 4 hours. Every unit provides extra wages
for extra work. Different wage rates for different types of
skills for skilled workers are as follows:
in garment units it is Rs. 65/- per day to Rs.150/- per day.
in service units it is Rs. 43/per day to Rs. 65/- per day.
for furniture and carpentry it is Rs. 75/- per day to Rs.
150/- per day.
Some units also pay on a monthly basis as, for example, the
paper and flower unit which pays Rs. 1400/- per month or the
pottery whose workers are paid Rs. 3000/ - per month. In
general, wages given by Auroville units are 20%-25% higher
than the average wages paid for the same skills in the
surrounding region.
For unskilled labour the variation in wage rate is Rs. 10/-
per day to Rs. 100/- per day and some units give Rs.600/- to
Rs.900/-per month. Apart from wages, there are scores of
beneficiary programs provided by the units. Having joined an
Auroville unit a worker automatically comes under the umbrella
of certain social securities, for example, free facility of
Auroville health center, facility of education etc. Every unit
is providing provident fund, paid leave, insurance, medical
allowance, accident allowance etc. and as per the policies,
different units provide different incentives. For example
Martina of Le Gourmet provides her workers with maternity
leave and different packages of paid leave if the employee
ensures that a newborn child will be breast fed for one year.
Apart from this, regular body soap, cloth soap, part payment
for purchasing a cycle, uniforms, etc. are provided and
regular language classes in French and English are given along
with basic instruction on health, hygiene and nutrition.
Most of the units ensure that the workers get regular
instruction in French and English and there are incentives if
children attend night schools.
Some unit executives provide housing assistance also. Service
units give free bread, cake etc. Some units are providing
retirement fund and yearly travel expenses. One particular
unit is dedicated to the development of the girl child: after
4 hours of work, there are classes, sports etc. The unit also
supports full boarding, maintenance and education of 7 girls.
In fact, Aurovilians engaged in business practices are also
participating in the development of society. In a nutshell
these units are not only generating business but are also an
institution in themselves.
Training
All the units are operating on the
principles of 'On-the-job training'. Different crafts require
different time periods to learn, these vary from 3 to 5 months
in a garment unit, to 3 weeks of training in the applique
unit. A leather entrepreneur claimed that to achieve dexterity
in finished leather craft, more than 5 years of on-the-job
training is required. However, one year of training is
sufficient for soft leather work. For paper and flower based
greeting cards in which flower pressing is a meticulous art, 2
months of experience may be required to learn sticking,
followed by one or even two years of 'on-the-job training' to
make a dexterous worker. In two cases only, a specialized
training course was found for applique work. Namrita provides
a 3 week training courses for college girls, Center for
scientific research (CSR) conducts training courses for masons
and others. One of the problems some units are facing is that
experienced local females leave the job after getting married
but as expressed by female entrepreneurs, their goal is met if
they continue to practice the lessons and self dependence they
learned from their work experience.
Competition
The manufacturing units at Auroville are
facing competition at different scales. Depending on the type
of product, type of industry and market coverage the
competition is different. Basically the competition is of two
types, price and plagiarism.
Leather industries
The units studied under this category in
Auroville make a variety of items ranging from garments to
footwear, bags to wallets and knicknacks. For footwear and
leather garments, competition exists at the regional level but
for accessories and gift items there is competition from
villagers only. As one of the executives mentioned, within 3
years, there are number of players operating at a local level.
Auroville units hold the edge only by virtue of the quality of
its goods.
Garment industries
There were different points of view
expressed by garment and cloth accessories units. The
hand-painted silk garment export unit faces competition from
Delhi as production costs are cheaper there. The cotton
garment export unit is not facing any competition locally and
within Auroville, as they have a select clientele for export.
In the case of appliqué work, the product is unique and free
of competition at any level. Hammock knitting unit, Lotus, is
not facing any competition in the local and national market
but in export are facing competition.
Food processing industry
The units studied in food processing are
basically bakery and Jam-Jelly-Marmalade. Since they are
service units and have been set up to serve the community,
they are not facing any competition. Moreover, as the demand
is greater than the supply, one more bakery came up a few
years back.
Wood based industry
The types of units studied are making
wooden toys, hammock reapers, wooden utensils etc. For wooden
toys export, the unit was facing competition from Chinese
products. For hammock reapers, at a local level, there was no
competition as they had dedicated customers. The household
utensils unit is facing competition from its old workers only
and at a local level.
Clay based industry
In clay based industry, only potteries
were studied and they are facing healthy competition. At a
local level, the competition is less, as local potters cannot
compete in range, variety, art and quality; moreover for
quality pottery there is a large market in India and awareness
is growing day by day. The supply is less than the demand,
hence there is no competition at the national level either.
Flower pressed greeting card
The greeting cards in this unit are made
by a specialized technique, hence they are not facing any
competition. It is a meticulous art and so the unit faces less
competition at a local and regional level. Moreover, they hold
the edge by the range and the variety of their products.
Electronic based industry
The only unit studied under this
category is a solar-based grid converter unit. The product is
so specialized that apart from stray examples, it is not in
use in India at present. In export they are not facing any
competition as they have dedicated clients. But for
Uninterrupted power supply (UPS), which is being made for the
Indian market, they are facing competition.
Other units There is only one unit in Auroville making incense
and aroma of this type and in terms of quality of incense they
are the leaders. However they have started facing competition
at the national and international levels. They have problems
of plagiarism also. The furniture renovation unit is facing
competition from many units locally. The units in Pondicherry
have also started exporting furniture, though the Auroville
unit excels on account of its quality.
Innovation, Technology and
Environmental consideration
Amongst the cases studied, it is not
that each unit is developing a new technology. Most of them
are using old technology but the effort is towards using and
evolving appropriate technology suitable for that area and
environment.
In garment industries, crafts and processes used are
conventional apart from appliqué unit which uses waste cloth
pieces discarded by other garment industries as its raw
material. Around 40% requirement of its raw material is
fulfilled in this manner.
In the case of solar converters, it is basically a case of
technology transfer from Germany. Some entrepreneurs have also
experimented with imported tools and plan to improve the
quality; for example, solar converter unit imports integrated
circuits, Garment units use imported air brushes for painting
and leather units use imported hand tools from America and
Taiwan for designs on leather.
The technology may also be adapted, as in the pottery unit
which is modifying the design of a Korean potter's wheel to
suit its requirements.
The units attempt to use environmentally friendly techniques
and research to achieve quality without the use of hazardous
chemicals. In the garment unit, the cotton used is organically
dyed and it is ensured that exported garment is ASO free (ASO
is a particular dye which was banned in Germany because it is
hazardous to the skin and unsafe for children). The attempt is
being made in leather craft to use only lacquer for colouring,
but till now they have been unsuccessful in achieving the same
quality with lacquer. The preservatives used in Jam-jelly are
organic, made from flowers and not chemicals and Aurovilians
have been able to grow the required flowers successfully in
Auroville.
Proper recycling of waste is also taken care of. For example,
in the pottery unit, the kilns are fired at 1300 C rather than
at 800 C. This is done in order to prevent the formation of
unstabilized glass in the ash which may leach and contaminate
the water table. As a precaution, the ash that is produced is
used for spreading on roads rather than as fertilizer. Waste
from the wood based industry is used for firing the ovens.
There is little waste generated in the leather industry as
even small pieces are used to make products and cuttings are
sold to cobblers. Cloth waste is reused or sold for use as
scrubbers for mechanics. All organic waste goes for
composting. An agency Ecoservice collects paper, etc., all
possible recyclable material goes for recycling. Batteries and
toxic material are separated and used in concrete block.
Aspirations and Plans for expansion
Most of the executives expressed their
desire to expand their units, not only in terms of gross
production but also in terms of expanding their markets,
imported technologies, training program, innovations etc.
The toy factory has plans for training and introduction of
innovative techniques from Argentina. Lotus (Hammock unit)
wants to import better knitting methods from South Africa.
Maroma, a perfume-based unit, aspires to tap the Indian
market. The solar converter unit wants to invent and
manufacture best high quality machines. In some cases
executives want to limit their production process and
expressed that is only possible if workers are willing to
participate. Other units would like to increase the benefits
for their workers; the leather unit has plans to help its
workers with housing.
Service units have no plans to expand, though the Jam-Jelly
unit's market has expanded to Bangalore. Construction units
aspire to import infrastructure and innovative techniques of
building construction. One common theme of all of them was
their desire to contribute more and more to Auroville, with
the underlying thought that the product should be beautiful
and sustainable.
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