A mobile app development company in Karaikudi works with businesses that sell heritage. The Chettinad belt around Karaikudi, Kanadukathan, Athangudi, Pallathur and Devakottai earns from visitors, crafts and trade that grew out of the old Nagarathar mansions, while the rest of Sivaganga district farms coconut, processes coir and exports gherkins.
Many of the large Chettinad homes have been restored as heritage hotels and homestays, and the tours that bring guests here usually include Athangudi for its handmade tiles, Kanadukathan for its weaving and Karaikudi for its antique and old wooden furniture shops. Each of those stops is a small business that takes bookings by phone, sends photos on WhatsApp and keeps orders in a notebook. Weekends and the cooler months bring most visitors, so a missed message can mean an empty room.
Craft is the second pillar. The Kandangi cotton saree, woven in Karaikudi and the villages around it, was registered as a Geographical Indication in August 2019 after a weavers' cooperative applied in 2013. Athangudi tiles, laid by hand on glass and left to cure, have a GI application under examination. The district's export plan also lists Chettinad kottan palm baskets, Ariyakudi lamps, Sungudi sarees and carved wooden items among the products that already travel abroad.
Away from the heritage trail, Sivaganga is an agricultural district. The state picked coir products as its One District One Product, and coconut, coir pith blocks, gherkins and pickles are its main agro exports. SIPCOT at Manamadurai hosts drug and chemical units, and Karaikudi is home to Alagappa University and the CSIR Central Electrochemical Research Institute. Neighbouring districts have their own pages: Pudukkottai, Ramanathapuram and Madurai.