MODERN DELHI PUBLIC SCHOOL

GREATER FARIDABAD
CLASS - VII(CIVICS)
CHAPTER 9 : A SHIRT IN THE MARKET
HANDOUT

INTRODUCTION
 This chapter tells us the story of a shirt. It tells us the various steps
involved in the manufacturing of the shirt in the market till the
delivery of the final product to the customers.
 We shall see that a chain of markets links the producer of the
cotton to buyer of the shirt in the supermarket
COTTON INDUSTRY IN INDIA
 India’s woven textiles are famous throughout the world.
 Delicate colours and distinctive patterns have been the hallmarks
of the Indian craftsmen for centuries.

 The cotton cloth weavers of India have been known since the
earliest days of recorded history.
 A fragment of madder-dyed cloth found in the Indus valley
excavation in the northern India showed that weaving and dyeing
were flourishing arts over 5,000 years ago.
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 There were skills that were to increase and diversify down the
centuries attracting wider and more lasting acclaim.
 Arab traders in the 9th century reported that “. They make
garments of such extraordinary perfection that nowhere else is
there likeness to be seen.” Marko polo observed that the art of
embroidery as practised in Gujarat in the 13th century was
incomparable.
 It was not only the technique of dyeing that made India’s textiles
famous.
 The fabrics were embellished with scintillating designs which India
alone could offer.
 There were some fabrics with every thread of warp and weft was
died before being placed on loom and then the individual artist
gave his aesthetic concepts to the products he made with his own
hands.
CASE STUDY OF KURNOOL
1. Kurnool is a small place in
Andhra-Pradesh where
Swapna a small farmer,
grows cotton on her small
piece of land.
2. Swapna picks the cotton
after ripping open the bolls
of cotton plant.The bolls,
which carry cotton in them
do not burst open all at
once. So it takes several days
to harvest the cotton.
3. Swapna and her husband decided to take the harvest to the local
trader instead of selling it in the Kurnool cotton market.

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4. In the beginning of the cropping season, she had borrowed 2500
from a trader at a very high rate of interest as cotton harvesting
requires high levels of input. But, with a promise to sell all the
cotton to that trader.
5. At traders Yard, her bags of cotton were weighed and she was paid
6000 out of which the trader deducted 3000 for repayment of loan
and interest and paid Swapna 3000.
6. Swapna’s earning is barely more than what she might have earned
as a wage labourer.
THE CLOTH MARKET OF ERODE
1. Erode’s bi-weekly cloth market in Tamil Nadu is one of the
largest cloth markets in the world.
2. Cloth that is made by weavers in the villages around is brought
here for sale.

3. This market is frequented by cloth merchants and traders who

come here to purchase the cloth made by weavers.
4. These cloth merchants then supply cloth on order to garment
manufacturers and exporters around the country.

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 PUTTING OUT SYSTEM
1. Putting out system is the arrangement between the merchants and
the weavers whereby the merchant supplies, the raw material and
receives the finished product.
2. The merchant distributes work among the weavers based on the
orders he has received for the cloth.
3. The weaver gets the yarn from the merchant and supply him the
cloth.
ADVANTAGES OF PUTTING OUT SYSTEM:
1. The weavers do not have to spend their money on the purchase of
yarn.
2. The problem of selling the finished product is also taken care.
3. Weavers know from the outset what cloth they should make and
how much of it is to be woven.
DISADVANTAGES OF PUTTING OUT SYSTEM:
1. The weavers are dependent on the merchants for raw material and
markets which make the merchants position very powerful.
2. The weavers are often paid very low price for making the cloth.

3. The weavers do not know who they are making the cloth for and at
what price it will be sold.
ACTIVITIES IN GARMENT EXPORTING FACTORY
1. The Erode merchant supplies the cotton cloth produced by the
weavers to a garment exporting factory near Delhi.
2. The garments factory makes shirts to be sold to the chain of
business persons from US and Europe.
3. These large stores from US and Europe do business strictly on their
own terms.
4. These stores purchase products at lowest price from the supplier.
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5. They even set high quality standards and timely delivery.

6. Any deviation would result in losses for the garment export centre.

7. Faced with pressure, the garment centre tries to extract maximum

work from their workers at the lowest cost.
8. Most of the workers in garment export factory work at least 10 to
12 hours but they get very low wages.
9. Most of the workers employed are temporary and are asked to
leave when here is no work.
WEAVERS COOPERATIVE
1. As weavers are paid very little by the merchants. Weavers
cooperatives are the only way to reduce the dependence on
merchants and to earn a higher income for the weavers.
2. In a cooperative, people with common interest come together and
work for their mutual benefit.

3. The weavers form a group and take up certain activities

collectively.
4. They procure yarn from the yarn dealer and distribute it among the
weavers.
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5. The cooperative also does the marketing.

6. So, the role of the merchant is reduced, and weavers get a fair price
on the cloth.
THE SHIRT IN THE UNITED STATES
1. The shirts sent from garments export centre in Delhi are sold in
dollars in the US.
2. The shirts sold at rupees 200 by the garments export centre sell at
rupees 1200 in the US.
3. Thus, the chain store makes the maximum profit and the seller and
producer get meagre benefits
4. Thus, a chain of markets links the producer of cotton to the buyer
at the supermarket.
5. The people who toiled hard did not make as much profit as the final
seller in the US.
MARKET AND EQUALITY
1. The relationship between market and equality is intricate as there
are people who make profits and others who do not gain as much
from the buying and selling.
2. A chain of markets links the producer of cotton to the buyer of
supermarket and buying and selling takes place at every step in the
chain.
3. The foreign businessmen made huge profits in this chain of markets
while the garment exporter makes only moderate profit and the
small cotton farmers who toiled very hard earned very little.
4. Though the market offers opportunities to everybody for buying
and selling, it is normally the rich and powerful who gets the
benefit of maximum earnings from the market.

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5. The poor have to depend on rich and powerful for various things
like loans, marketing of goods raw materials etc. because of which
they get exploited.

IMPORTANT TERMS
 Ginning Mill: A factory where seeds are removed from cotton bolls.
The cotton is pressed into bales to be sent for spinning into thread
 Exporter: A person who sells good abroad.
 Profit: The amount that is left or gained from earnings after
deducting all the costs. If the costs are more than the earnings, it
would lead to a loss.

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