page_title: Tiruchirappalli
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Tiruchirappalli / Economy
caption_attribution_description: A rare loco - made from the components of overaged WDM2 and YDM4 locomotives, manufactured at the Golden Rock Railway Workshop.
context_page_description: Tiruchirappalli, also called Tiruchi or Trichy, is a major tier II city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli district. It is the fourth largest city as well as the fourth largest urban agglomeration in the state. Located 322 kilometres south of Chennai and 374 kilometres north of Kanyakumari, Tiruchirappalli sits almost at the geographic centre of the state. The Cauvery Delta begins 16 kilometres west of the city where the Kaveri river splits into two, forming the island of Srirangam, which is now incorporated into the Tiruchirappalli City Municipal Corporation. The city occupies an area of 167.23 square kilometres and had a population of 916,857 in 2011.
  Tiruchirappalli is one of the oldest inhabited cities in India. Its recorded history begins in the 3rd century BC, when it was under the rule of the Cholas. The city has also been ruled by the Pallavas, Pandyas, Vijayanagar Empire, Nayak Dynasty, the Carnatic state and the British. The most prominent historical monuments in Tiruchirappalli include the Rockfort, the Ranganathaswamy temple at Srirangam and the Jambukeswarar temple at Thiruvanaikaval.
context_section_description: During British rule, Tiruchirappalli was known for its tanneries, cigar-manufacturing units and oil presses. At its peak, more than 12 million cigars were manufactured and exported annually. Tanned hides and skins from Tiruchirappalli were exported to the United Kingdom. The city has a number of retail and wholesale markets, the most prominent among them being the Gandhi Market, which also serves people from other parts of the district. Other notable markets in the city are the flower bazaar in Srirangam and the mango market at Mambazha Salai. The suburb of Manachanallur is known for its rice mills, where polished Ponni rice is produced.
  Tiruchirappalli is a major engineering equipment manufacturing and fabrication hub in India. The Golden Rock Railway Workshop, which moved to Tiruchirappalli from Nagapattinam in 1928, is one of the three railway workshop–cum–production units in Tamil Nadu. The workshops produced 650 conventional and low-container flat wagons during 2007–2008.
  A high-pressure boiler manufacturing plant was set up by Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India's largest public sector engineering company, in May 1965. This was followed by a seamless steel plant and a boiler auxiliaries plant. In 2010, the Tiruchirappalli unit of the company contributed to nearly 30 per cent of its total sales, making it the largest of all units. As of 2011, the Tiruchirappalli division employed about 10,000 people, and is supported by a number of ancillary industries producing almost 250,000 tonnes (250,000,000 kg) of fabricated materials. These ancillary units together with BHEL contribute nearly 60 per cent of India's steel fabrication, earning the city the title, "Energy equipment and fabrication capital of India". Other important industries in Tiruchirappalli include Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited (TDCL), which was established at Senthaneerpuram in the former Golden Rock municipality in 1966. and the Trichy Steel Rolling Mills, which was started as a private limited company on 27 June 1961. The Trichy Distilleries and Chemicals Limited manufactures rectified spirit, acetaldehyde, acetic acid, acetic anhydride and ethyl acetate. It is one of the biggest private sector distilleries in Tamil Nadu and produced 13.5 megalitres (3.0 million imperial gallons) of spirit alcohol between December 2005 and November 2006. The Ordnance Factories Board runs a weapons manufacturing unit and a Heavy Alloy Penetrator Project (HAPP) facility; the latter was set up in the late 1980s and comprises a flexible manufacturing system (FMS)—the first of its kind in India.
  From the late 1980s, a synthetic gem industry was developed in the city; the gemstones are cut and polished in Tiruchirappalli district and in Pudukottai district. In 1990, the Indian government launched a scheme to increase employment by boosting the production of American diamonds and training local artisans in semi-automated machinery and technology. The local gem industry was reportedly generating annual revenues of ₹100 million (equivalent to ₹480 million or US$6.7 million in 2019) by the mid-1990s. Concerns have been raised over the employment of children aged 9–14 in the gem cutting and polishing industry. As a result, in 1996, Tiruchirappalli district was selected to be involved in the National Child Labour Project and in the running of special schools to educate working children.
  As of December 2010, the Tiruchirappalli region annually exports around ₹262.1 million (equivalent to ₹470 million or US$6.6 million in 2019) of software. The ELCOT IT Park—the city's first IT park—commissioned at a cost of ₹600 million (equivalent to ₹1.1 billion or US$15 million in 2019) was inaugurated in December 2010. Set up by the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, the park occupies an area of 59.74 hectares (147.6 acres) and constitutes a Special Economic Zone.
caption: A WDS6 locomotive manufactured at the Golden Rock Railway Workshop
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