The puffiness and dark circles under her eyes are telltale signs of the many sleepless nights V Priya has endured since she started working at a spinning mill in Tamil Nadu. Persistent headaches, skin rashes and stomach aches have worsened her health condition amid soaring temperatures in the region and relentless work in ‘furnace-like factories’.
“My sleep was never disturbed before I joined the factory seven years ago. (Now) my legs are sore, my body aches and I am too tired. But I cannot sleep,” said Priya, who works in a spinning mill in Dindigul, where she migrated seven years ago from neighbouring Karur district because “there is always work here”.
She is among thousands of migrant workers from Tamil Nadu and eastern states like Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, who come to Dindigul, home to one of the biggest textile and garment hubs in the country.
As per government data, Tamil Nadu has more than 1,500 spinning mills and accounts for 46 percent of India’s spinning capacity. Dindigul is one of the main hubs and predominantly consists of spinning mills, which produce yarn of varying fineness that is used domestically and exported. These mills are an integral part of the fast fashion supply chain – they supply to the garment factories, which, in turn, supply to popular global brands.
Migrant workers form the backbone of these factories – they handle raw cotton, operate spinning machines and package finished yarn – but must endure harsh working conditions.
In recent years, worker unions have been highlighting the extreme heat inside factories as summer temperatures rise, especially since there is little or no ventilation, and limited hydration breaks are increasingly impacting workers’ health.
The Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), which started monitoring heat stress in Dindigul’s factories two years ago, has noticed a spike in temperatures and humidity levels inside the mills. “This May, the maximum temperature stood at 38.5 degrees Celsius and relative humidity was 49 percent,” said Thivya Rakini, TTCU’s state president.
TTCU has also documented a rise in health-related issues during the summer among women workers, including skin infections, urinary tract infections (UTIs), hemorrhoids and menstrual health complications.
Priya, who starts work at 8:30 am in the department where yarn is wound onto cones, sweats profusely for most of her eight-hour shift, standing just two feet away from a heat-emitting yarn-winding machine. “The first two hours (of the day) and the lunch break are the only times when sweat doesn’t stream down my forehead like a leaky tap, drenching my clothes,” she told The Migration Story at her house, while getting ready for her shift. “I always carry a balm for my headaches and a medicated powder for the rashes in my bag,” she said, explaining how she copes through the day and adding that “no one has dared to complain to the management about the heat”.
Heat on the shop floor
There are 500 people employed at the spinning mill Priya works in and 50 work alongside her on the same floor, which has no ceiling fans.
Spinning mill factories are extremely hot with six people working on nine machines in a 30x30 feet space, said Dr A Srinivasan, project manager at Peace Trust, a non-profit working on improving the conditions in these mills. “At least 80 percent of the factories have cement flooring, with very few that have tiled surfaces, which are more cooling. On the factory floor, there is just enough space to walk between the spinning and winding machines that emit more heat as they get older, which is the case in many factories.”
“We can’t place table fans near the machines,” said R Ganesan, assistant spinning manager at Dollar Spinning Mill, which employs around 700 workers, citing safety concerns. Cotton dust in the factories is flammable, and table fans can blow it into machines, risking a fire hazard, he added.
While there is no published research on the heat stress index in Dindigul’s textile mills, a study of the heat stress index inside Surat’s textile mills in the Pandesara industrial area found that it was 84.81 during the day and 83.07 at night. The 2017 study stated that “there are more chances of heat cramps if workers are exposed to heat stress continuously for eight hours.”
The Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association (TASMA), the largest association of yarn spinning mills in India, has been promoting humidification setups to maintain optimal humidity and temperature in factories, which is important in the fibre-to-yarn manufacturing process.
“These setups remove hot air and bring in cold air. If the relative humidity exceeds 55 percent and the temperature crosses 30 degrees Celsius, the yarn breaks,” said VS Palaniswamy, executive committee member at TASMA, adding that such setups are costly and present only in a few top mills.
In many of the small and unorganised mills in Dindigul, only exhaust fans are used for air circulation, providing little or no relief to workers.
“Minute changes, such as introducing longer breaks during summers, supplying ORS water (oral rehydration solutions), enhancing airflow through exhaust fans, and planting trees around the workspace could make a significant difference. Unfortunately, factory management is not focusing on such long-term interventions,” said Srinivasan.
Access to cold water and hydration breaks
For Priya, the only relief from the oppressive heat at her workplace comes from a water pipeline that runs through the factory premises. “The water from the pipe is always hot. Forget buttermilk or juice, I just wish they would at least give us some cold water,” she said.
Her experience is echoed by G Radha, a migrant worker from Madurai district, who said that the water at her factory is so hot, she drinks very little of it. “I splash my face with the (hot) water once an hour just to wash away the sweat. But I feel dehydrated and at night, my head and body ache.”
Till five years ago, the drinking water facility was available only at the canteen on the factory premises. But as temperatures rise with every passing summer, many factory managements now provide drinking water facilities on each factory floor. This gives workers – most of whom do not carry their own water from home, as it heats up during the day – access to cold water.
During the shift, factory management says that workers are allowed to take as many water breaks as they want. “We offer buttermilk during summers. They already have a tea allowance and biscuits, along with access to chilled water and ceiling fans,” said Ganesan.
But hydration breaks remain a challenge, say union members and workers. The latter take fewer than four breaks, each lasting less than five minutes, as managers reprimand them if the breaks are longer or more frequent. “Just like you can’t feel at home at your in-laws’ house, you can’t take as many hydration breaks in factories. The alert eyes of our managers make us uncomfortable,” Radha said. Besides the lunch break, she takes just two breaks to drink water and use the restroom.
“Many women also reduce their water intake to avoid toilet breaks, afraid of reprimand from their supervisors. This results in dehydration and worsens conditions like UTIs and clotting during menstruation,” Rakini said.
But access to healthcare, particularly for women workers, is a major challenge. TTCU maintains that the government-run Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) hospitals are frequently understaffed, and most mill workers cannot afford private gynaecological consultations, which can cost up to Rs 600 per visit.
Sick leave and wage cuts
Every morning, workers, dressed in blue or green overshirts worn over their sarees or kurtas, board factory buses from across Dindigul to head to work. To cope with the heat, Priya wears a breathable Chinnalapatti cotton saree under her blue uniform shirt. But the latter is made of a thick, polyester blend, so she sweats a lot underneath, and this gives her persistent skin rashes.
Back home after her shift, there is little rest or respite from the fatigue or the heat for Priya.
Most workers live in hostel rooms provided by factory managements – typically small 15x15 feet rooms with a ceiling fan that house a family of four or up to five persons. The only other cooling appliance workers have is a table fan that they purchase collectively and share amongst themselves.
But those migrating from within the state choose to live in informal settlements, renting makeshift homes constructed with asbestos sheets, often with a plastic sheet used as the door – all heat trapping materials that further exacerbate the heat stress indoors.
Priya goes to bed at 9 pm but drifts off to sleep only two hours later. Her night-time discomfort is compounded by frequent power cuts in the informal settlement where she lives with her husband. On an average, there are power cuts twice a week, lasting from 10 to 30 minutes. She wakes up at least twice every night because of the body ache. When it gets unbearable, she takes an injection at a public hospital, which gives her relief for a few days.
Despite this, Priya hesitates to take even one casual leave in a month because it can put her monthly incentive of Rs 520 in jeopardy. “The industry runs on a ‘no work, no pay’ policy, which is cruel,” said Rakini. “If workers take an additional leave, apart from the one casual leave (they’re allowed in a month), they lose their daily wages and their incentive.”
In fact, workers must take permission from multiple department heads for a leave – a process many describe as “humiliating”. They are often questioned about why they want to take a leave and asked to describe their illness in front of others. Even if they take time off because of work-related illnesses, those who return after 10 or more days are treated as “rejoined employees” in several factories and are denied certain financial benefits, Rakini said. So, for example, if a worker’s daily wage increases over time and he or she takes a long break, on resuming work, his or her wage reverts to the older, lower wage.
Coping with heat
Twenty-two-year-old Harini Nayak, from Odisha’s Brahmapur, has few complaints about the mill where she works. This is partly because the working conditions at factories in her home state are worse. For instance, workers in Odisha’s biscuit factories, she said, are paid only half of what she earns per day in Dindigul – Rs 430 – and factories there lack basic facilities like fans, restrooms and water coolers.
Nayak, who comes from a farming family, says that the money they make from cultivation cannot cover her parents’ medical expenses. It’s why she migrated to Tamil Nadu – to make a better living and take care of her parents.
Though the factory where she works has ceiling fans, an air conditioner and access to chilled water at all times, she said that more can be done to make the workers comfortable. “We have cold water, but that’s a recent development. I wish the management could provide us with a lemon soda at least once during our shift.”
Most of this workforce, however, does not share Nayak’s luck. They complain of eye burn, lower stomach ache and heat boils, among other things. “To overcome this physical discomfort and fall asleep, I choose nasha (alcohol),” said a 22-year-old from Odisha, who has been working at a mill here for the past month.
If workers take leave because of heat-related illnesses, they lose out on a daily incentive of Rs 40 to 50. So, despite the challenges of working in the heat, most workers prefer not to take a day off.
“At least during summer, the management could choose not to cut the incentive and create a more supportive environment for applying for leave," said an Odisha-based agent (on the condition of anonymity), who helps people from her state find work across Dindigul district.
Needed: a heat action plan
Activists say that district-wise Heat Action Plans (HAPs) are imperative, particularly because they can empower both the workforce and factory management. Such plans can help with preparedness and outline clear, localised strategies to help protect workers from heat stress.
In March 2024, the state’s Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (DPH) directed all district health officers, including those in Dindigul, to develop district-specific Heat Action Plans (HAPs). However, Dindigul Municipal Commissioner N Ravichandran, who assumed office last month, and other DPH officials said that Dindigul has no HAP in place.
While the Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority prepared a state level heat wave action plan in 2019, it has come under the scanner for being ineffective. The same year, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, recognising that climate risks differ from region to region, directed all districts in the country to prepare a District Action Plan on Climate Change and Human Health (DAPCCHH), which includes heat stress as a key component.
Dr TS Selvavinayagam, director of the state’s DPH, told The Migration Story that all 38 districts had submitted their plans to the National Centre for Disease Control in New Delhi for final approval. “This achievement positions Tamil Nadu as the first state in India to attain 100 percent draft submission of the DAPCCHH,” he said.
The closest the state came to helping workers battle heat stress was last year, when the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission developed a draft Heat Mitigation Strategy. It has recommendations for workplace safety protocols, such as adjusting work hours and providing shaded rest areas, among a long list of guidelines.
However, both the Heat Mitigation Strategy and the DAPCCHH remain unimplemented, even as non-profit organisations in Dindigul have actively advocated for a Heat Action Plan.
For now, TTCU is raising awareness among workers about how to deal with extreme heat. It conducts theatre-based workshops to help women share their experiences of heat stress and learn simple, low-cost methods to manage it. In the peak summer months, TTCU also organises events to address the heat-related challenges faced by women working in the mills.
“Through theatre and art-based workshops, we help them enact their lived experiences. Around 30 to 45 percent of the workforce in Dindigul’s mills is made up of adolescent girls, many of whom experience excessive white (vaginal) discharge during the summer but are unable to talk about it openly. We sensitise them to heat stress and encourage them to consume cooling foods, such as fenugreek and rice water,” Rakini said.
But all that workers like Priya want is a good night’s sleep – without a pounding headache or burning, watery eyes. “I don’t know if the summers are getting hotter, but I am sure that our lives are not getting better in the factories,” she said.
This story first appeared in the Migration Story, India’s first newsroom to focus on the country’s vast migrant population. The reporting was supported by People First Cities which is undertaking a project on rising heat in informal settlements.
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