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DUBIOUS DRESSES: Charity begins at home, and ends in roadside shops. Photo: K Vijay Anand

        If you happen to come by old sarees, churidhar sets and shirts which you had given away for charity, don't be surprised that they are put up for sale on the streets of T Nagar.

        While the majority of clothes on sale is procured from shops that buy old clothes from people, there is a small minority, which get their clothes free of cost by posing as representatives of some charitable organisation.

        'We are given ID cards and brochures of a non-existing charity organisation. In the morning, we have to undertake a door-to-door campaign and collect used clothes. We get a commission of Rs 2 or Rs 5 per dress depending on its quality. So only if we get at least 30 odd such clothes can we hope to eat two square meals a day,' says one of the agents.

        There seems to be a whole industry in this resale of old clothes. Step into the narrow, twisted by-lanes of T Nagar and you can see huge brick kilns meant for steaming secondhand clothes, launderers busy washing and ironing clothes and agents, sorting out churidhars for those perfectly matching sets.

        And when the clothes hit the streets after being steamed, washed, ironed and well-packaged, vendors pass them off as export-quality rejects to unwary customers.

        'We are doing legitimate business. It's the agents, posing as NGO workers and street vendors passing off old clothes as export-quality rejects, who are engaged in this business, if you can call it so. We pay the customer Rs 10 or Rs 20, depending on the quality of the material,' says Ramesh, the owner of a tailoring shop the entrance of which is embellished with a sign board, reading 'old churidhar sets, sarees, skirts, shirts, bed sheets and pillow covers will be bought here.'

        To give a vestige of authenticity to their business, some of the street vendors put up banners, proclaiming that they are export-quality rejects, and insert leaflets, bearing the same claim, inside the chudidhar sets.

        'Export- quality rejects are usually sold at factory outlets or shops sell them at a discount of 50 to 60 per cent. It is not commercially viable to sell churidhars or sarees for as low as Rs 60. I can state with authority that most of these clothes are used clothes,' says Seeni Fakir, the proprietor of a showroom.

        And as far as customers are concerned, some have caught on to what is going on. 'Initially I used to feel bad about wearing someone else's clothes. But, if one only wanted something to wear at home it's a good bargain,' says Hemalatha, a daily wager.

        But not all customers are street-smart and some do get duped. 'I bought two churidhar sets for my watchman's daughter, only to come home and find that the seams had gone awry, the lining was ripped off and the dress ill-fitting. They say free-size but the dresses I got could barely fit my 10-year-old niece,' says Vasunthi, a housewife.