Shanmugam (28 yrs) hails from a weaver’s family in Chinnappampatty village of Salem district, Tamil Nadu. Around two hundred families in this village earn their living by weaving and agriculture, growing cotton, sorghum and millets. He has an elder sister who is married and a younger brother, now a Diploma in Textile Engineering, working in the field of Textile Marketing. Since childhood he had an active interest in reading books rather than playing games and spent most of his free time in the village library.
His father, owned only one handloom to weave saris. He used to help his father and in the process always think about various ideas by which the loom could be improved. But he could not do much. After passing Higher Secondary, he was put as an apprentice with his uncle on daily wage basis. His uncle had 15 power looms. Here began his experimental journey. He worked with his uncle for three years. Most of the experiments he did were without the knowledge of his uncle. He would often repair the power loom whenever there was a problem. He never let the productivity decline and thus his uncle relied on him fully.
One of the problems he noticed was the need for an additional person to refill the shuttle with pirn windings of yarn. One pirn would have 1000 meters yarn for lateral movement or weft insert. He not only solved this problem but also got entry in Diploma College, and later degree college, all due to his talent.
.jpg)
