A mobile app development company in Tenkasi works with a young district and an old economy. Tenkasi was separated from Tirunelveli in 2019, but its trades are much older: lemons and paddy on the plains, coconut and coir under the Western Ghats, and visitors who arrive every monsoon for the Courtallam falls.
Puliyangudi is known as Lemon City. The district export plan describes its market as sending lemons to other states and abroad, and the central food processing ministry has picked lemon-based products as Tenkasi's One District One Product. Tenkasi, Surandai, Pavoorchatram, Alangulam and Sankarankovil run their own markets for lemons, millets, pulses, maize, cotton, groundnut and chillies. In every one of them, rates move daily and most trade is still agreed by phone and settled from a notebook.
Coconut covers more than 12,000 hectares of the district, and the state named coir pith blocks as Tenkasi's export product in 2020. The export plan counts more than 45 coir product units, many around Shenkottai, Kadayanallur and Tenkasi, pressing pith into blocks for growers and nurseries overseas. Rice mills cluster in Alangulam, Keezhappavur, Vasudevanallur and Kadayanallur; Sankarankovil has powerlooms; Kuruvikulam makes matches; and Shenkottai and Kadayam saw and finish wood.
Then there is Courtallam. The Chittar river drops over the Main Falls, and Peraruvi, Aindharuvi (Five Falls) and Puli Aruvi draw crowds of their own. During the south-west monsoon months hotels, resorts, lodges and spa centres around Tenkasi fill up. The district also borders Kerala, so trade and travel move both ways through Shenkottai. Neighbouring districts have their own pages: Tirunelveli, Sivakasi and Virudhunagar and Tuticorin.