By Seshadri Ramkumar, Texas Tech University, USA
The Union Budget for 2012-13 provides multiple goodies for promoting
the technical textiles sector. The 12th Five-Year Plan beginning in
April will implement the National Mission on Technical Textiles.
As part of promoting small and medium-scale enterprises to venture
into value-added textiles and technical textiles, a venture capital
scheme of Rs. 5,000 crores ($1 billion) has been set up titled the
India Opportunities Venture Fund.
Geotextiles gets a boost with an investment of Rs. 500 crores ($100
million). This plan will focus on the north-eastern region of the
country. The hygiene sector gets a boost with a reduction in basic
customs duties on the manufacture of adult diapers to 5 per cent with
6 per cent countervailing duty (CVD). There will be no special CVD.
Aramid yarns and fabrics are exempt from basic customs duties.
Automatic shuttle-less looms that can be used for technical fabrics
are exempt from the 5 per cent basic customs duty.
Further, the medical devices sector gets a Budget boost with the basic
customs duty reduced to 2.5 per cent with concessional CVD of 6 per
cent on raw materials and components used for the manufacture of
medical disposable items and instruments. Raw materials in the
manufacture of coronary stents and heart valves are fully exempt from
basic customs duty and CVD.
The Budget estimates the GDP growth for the year 2011-12 ended on
March 31 to be 6.9 per cent, which is lower than the 8.4 per cent
growth witnessed in the preceding two years.