The Vellore administrative center is predominantly a marketplace for its own district and neighboring districts, such as Chittoor District(Andhra Pradesh) and Thiruvannamalai District. The city and its nearby industrial towns have seen steady industrial growth following the development of South Asia's second railway line between Chennai, Royapuram and Walajapet. The Golden Quadrilateral road has significantly increased the region's industrial activity. Vellore lies between IT centers (Chennai and Bangalore) and major pilgrimage centres (Tirupathi and Thiruvannamalai). Thousands of people commute to Chennai and nearby industrial towns to work.
Leather
Hundreds of leather and tannery facilities are located around Vellore and its nearby towns, such as Ranipet, Ambur and Vaniyambadi. The Vellore district is the top exporter of finished leather goods in the country. Vellore leather accounts for more than 37 percent of the country's export of leather and leather-related products (such as finished leathers, shoes, garments and gloves). Leather and leather-product exports at the end of 1999 were estimated at Rs.2,000 crore from this district alone.
Manufacturing
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) is one of the nine major federal-government-owned enterprises in the nation. The area is home to the Boiler Auxiliaries Plant of BHEL located in Ranipet (the industrial hub of Vellore), which employs about 10,000 people and is one of the fastest-growing BHEL units in India. Ranipet also has about 250 small-scale engineering plants catering mainly to BHEL, and is probably the second-largest fabrication cluster in India.
Chemical plants in the Ranipet-SIPCOT economic zone are a major source of income. EID Parry is a sanitary-ware manufacturing company with 38 percent of the world's market share in bathroom
