Textile processing units in Sircilla, Telengana, are facing a water shortage. Drought conditions caused by monsoon failure have depleted the groundwater table and dried-up most of the borewells in Sircilla and its surroundings. The water woes, in turn, have become a bane for many textile workers. Getting regular work has become a luxury since the units they are employed with have no dependable water source now. Workers engaged in units with a dried-up water source count on their luck to get work as the owners have reduced production considerably due to the water scarcity and other market-linked problems.

They get work only when the unit owners order for water tankers to run different sections of textile processing from fabric dying to starching, stentering (stretching), sizing, drying and others. It also depends on orders the units get. Or else the workers have to bide their time at home.

The crisis in the textile units coupled with water woes is affecting workers’ lives from children’s education to family’s health needs. Sircilla at one time had handloom, power loom and textile processing units whirring round-the-clock. There were over a 100 units a decade ago. Hardly 70 are functioning now and more than half are on the verge of closure.