A.D.Cotton or Parvathi Mills Limited is a

textile manufacturing Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...

company owned by the

National Textile Corporation National Textile Corporation is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Textiles , Government of India It owns 23 working textile mills which produce yarn and fabric. The company was incorporated in April 1968. ...

(NTC) in

Kollam Kollam (), also known by its former name Quilon , is an ancient seaport and city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is north of the state capital Thiruvananthapuram. The city i ...

city,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The company was founded in 1884 by British citizen A.D. Cotton and was the lifeline of Kollam before independence. This mill was taken for rent for running by a Tamil enterpriser after Independence as the land was owned by the Kerala State Textile Corporation at that time. It was later was handed over to the NTC. The company has 120 employees, six of which are NTC staffers and 17 are casual workers. The plant has been shut down since 2008 pending modernisation. However, there is demand to build a bird sanctuary connected to backwaters.

History

His Highness Visakham Thirunal Rama Varma, the then

Maharaja of Travancore The Maharaja of Travancore was the principal title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Travancore in the southern part of Kerala, India. The Maharaja of Travancore was the topmost ruler of Travancore until 1949, when Travancore was annexed into Indi ...

took the initiative to start a spinning mill in Quilon city (now known as

) which was then business capital of

Travancore The Kingdom of Travancore ( /ˈtrævənkɔːr/), also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. At ...

along the

Malabar Coast The Malabar Coast is the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing m ...

. He donated the land to start the AD Cotton Mill in 1884. The land was handed over to

in 1974. The NTC planned to privatize Parvathy Mills in 2005. The plant was added by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction who had listed it for revival in 2002. The plan was dropped after protests by the Parvathy Mills Workers Union. Along with many other mills in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...

, Aurangabad, Akola,

Nanded Nanded is a city in Maharashtra state, India. It is the tenth largest city in the state and the seventy-ninth most populous city in India. It is the second largest city in Marathwada region. It is the district headquarters of Nanded distric ...

, Naini,

Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi Language, Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Rajasthan. , the city had a pop ...

and

Udaipur Udaipur () (ISO 15919: ''Udayapura''), historically named as Udayapura, is a city and municipal corporation in Udaipur district of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is the administrative headquarter of Udaipur district. It is the historic capit ...

, Parvathy Mill was slated for redevelopment and modernisation in 2007 and 2012. To date these improvements have not taken place, and mill has been closed since 2008. As per the market rates in 2019, the total land value of Parvathy Mill would be more than . The defunct mill's machinery has already become outdated and rusted beyond revival.

Demands for mill's land to start medical college

Representatives from Kollam along with organizations staged a

dharna A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to m ...

and march in February 2014 to try to obtain the Parvathy Mill land as the site for a government medical college. The mill is on 16.40 acres of prime city land valued at more than Rs.4 billion (US$64 million) as per the market value of 2014. , administrative delays in deciding on a site and obtaining land continue to delay the start of construction of the new college.

References

{{authority control Companies based in Kollam Textile companies of India Government-owned companies of India Cotton industry in India Indian companies established in 1884 Manufacturing companies established in 1990