The water shortage in Sircilla has only compounded the woes of the textile processing units already in crisis due to multifaceted problems. This has directly affected the workers whose chances of getting regular work has already shrunk. Sircilla, once the richest town in Karimnagar district with handlooms, power looms and textile processing units whirring round-the-clock. There were over 100 units a decade ago, but hardly 70 are surviving now with only 25 to 30 functioning with business hardly meeting sustenance, said T. Damodar, a processing unit owner.

Drought conditions caused by monsoon failure have depleted groundwater table and dried-up most of the borewells in Sircilla and its surroundings along with the rivulet Manair that has its course abutting the once-textile-rich town.

The water woes, in turn, have become a bane for many of textile workers as getting regular work has become a luxury for them since the units they are employed with have no dependable water source now. Workers engaged in units with dried-up water source, count on their luck to get work as the owners have reduced production considerably due to 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, they have to bide time at home as they don’t know other work which is affecting their lives.