Information

Indias state in maharashtra place powerloom city in Malegaon

Industry and economy

Malegaon is major hub for cloth weaving using early 20th century power looms. The era of power looms in Malegaon emerged after 1935. Malegaon was a traditional handloom-weaving centre in Maharashtra. Most of the preparatory work before weaving like starching the yarn, transferring it over the tubes, preparing tanabana was done by the women. Even after power looms were introduced, women continued to help the men in the weaving procedure.
With the introduction of power looms, the cloth industry in Malegaon flourished due to increased productivity. Many people bought power looms and very few were left with handlooms. It has an estimated 3 lakh power looms producing about 1 crore (10 million) meters of cloth every day. It attracts workers from around India, majority of migrants from U.P., Khandesh and Deccan, due to lower cost of living and Muslim dominance.
In recent times, the power loom industry is going through difficult phase due to factors like fluctuating government policies, frequent electricity outage, lack of political will, middleman at every stage, and reluctance to migrate to advanced machines.^[6] Though it is still a major source of employment, most of workers struggle to make a living. As a result, the city has observed a change in migration pattern wherein the worker prefer to move to metros compared to Malegaon for better and stable job opportunities.
Malegaon of late has been diversifying and new industries are rapidly expanding. PVC pipe manufacturing is one such industry. Malegaon is soon becoming a regional centre for PVC pipes.