THOOTHUKUDI: A Shanmuga Nadar and P Ayya Nadar are no Prometheus, but the fire they ignited a century ago has turned out to be a game-changer, bringing in phenomenal economic growth to the once-backward Sivakasi and nearby areas, reeling under agricultural crisis.
The pioneers of the safety match industry in the state, Shanmuga and Ayya, related to each other as cousins, learnt the trick of making safety matches by staying for eight months in Kolkata in 1922, before setting up the first safety match factory - National Match Works - a year later in Sivakasi.
That was just the beginning. In the years that followed, matchbox factories would start mushrooming across the region.
Speaking to TNIE, G Athipathy, grandson of Ayya Nadar, said it was P Sinna Nadar who conveyed the business potential of match factories to his cousins Shanmuga Nadar and Ayya Nadar after reading an article.
The cousins, deeply influenced by the Swadeshi movement, initially set up the factory with crude machinery. “However, they shifted their machines to a factory in Sri Lanka and launched a hand-made unit to provide jobs to the poor,” Athipathy said, adding the industry thrived in Sivakasi and nearby areas, as rainfed agriculture was a failure in the region.
Ask safety match manufacturers, they would say once Sivakasi was home to 500 artists, drawing logos and symbols on the matchboxes.
Over 90 % of the workforce in match factories are women, as men are mostly engaged in dipping, dyeing, loading and unloading the bundles. Now more than a century old, the industry has evolved from the initial hand-made matchsticks making units to semi-automated and fully-automated ones.
The factors like supply chain of raw materials, availability of cheap labour, transportation, besides the dry and hot climatic conditions are all conducive for the matchsticks that are in high demand in northern states and overseas, including Europe and African continents. The industry has also helped build many lives.
Going down the memory lane, P Maheswaran (41) of Inam Maniachi said when he was a student, he used to help his mother arrange the splints on wooden frames. “After my school hours, I used to fill 40 frames in a day, and it helped me continue my studies,” he said.
There were three shifts in a day, which later came down to two and at present one due to mechanisation.
Outgoing president of National Small Scale Safety Match Manufacturers Association, VS Sethurathinam, said the factories thrived in the region as it provided jobs to women. “The women who relied on agriculture turned to match factories as agriculture was active only during monsoon, and failed often during drought,” he pointed out.
Over the time, the availability of labourers shrunk as the next generation moved towards greener pastures. However, the innovation of semi and fully automated machines in the 1990s came in handy for the industry to tackle the labour crisis.
SM Antony Bharati, MD of Deepak Matches, which has been in the field for eight decades, said, “Now one-third of the total number of industries is fully automated, while the rest are semi-automated.”
The run through the century is not smooth for the industry owing to the soaring raw material prices, shortage of timber for splints and wax, toll fee hike, cut in export incentives, and frequent fire accidents. A major blow to the industry is the introduction of cigarette lighters, which ate into the domestic market of safety matches, forcing the manufacturers to demand the central and state governments to ban the lighters.
In a hand-made matchstick manufacturing unit of 150 labourers, the semi-automated machines would cut short the number of labourers by half, and a fully-automated unit requires only 30 labourers.
With the spiralling cost of raw materials, the manufacturers found a novel method to balance the cost by reducing the number of matchsticks in the box. “It was 50 in the initial stages, however, the number of matchsticks was reduced to 40, 35 and 25 now,” the manufacturers said.
The fire ignited by Shanmuga Nadar and Ayya Nadar is still a source of income for many. “TN could ban cigarette lighters, as done by Andaman and Nicobar,” said Athipathy, keeping his fingers crossed.
How they are made
The process of matchbox making involves arranging the matchsticks on a “wooden frame”, dipping the matchstick heads into wax and potassium chlorate, filling matchsticks into boxes, bundling, packaging, and stacking. The labour of women is high in filling undipped matchicks in the wooden frame, filling them into matchboxes after being dipped in chemicals, packaging and bundling
Soon after the installation of the first factory in Sivakasi, the matchstick factories sprouted across Sattur, Kovilpatti, Kazhugumalai of Thoothukudi, Kuruvikulam and parts of Tirunelveli
The making of matchsticks requires at least 22 raw materials which are sourced from different states
Men also work in ancillary industries like timber outlets, splints cutting companies, cardboard factories, printing offsets, and transporting firms that mushroomed around the safety match factories
During the shortage of timber, they used to import pine trees from Australia. When wax supply from Chennai Petroleum Chemicals gets stuck, it is imported from Iran
For making splints, the timbers of trees like mutti and albizia are supplied from Kerala and Karnataka. The splints are further cut to make matchsticks
In order to attract the workers and reduce attrition, the manufacturers provided groceries, snacks, and batter to women when they return home after night shifts. Some provided quarters and deducted the rent from salaries
Initially, the work of arranging the splints on to wooden frames was done by women at their houses that flourished as a cottage industry
(This series marks 100 years of the matchbox industry in Tamil Nadu)