While hailing the move by the government, CITI’s Chairman T Rajkumar opined that this would open more opportunities for the textile industry to cater to domestic as well as international markets
The Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, under the dynamic leadership of Minister of Textiles Smriti Zubin Irani, is in the process of formulating the new textile policy, which is likely to be announced in 2020. To further the cause, the ministry has been a conducting series of meetings for each segment and is in the process of drafting the policy with the sole objective of making the Indian textile industry a true global leader by improving its competitiveness, bridging the technology gap, encouraging sustainability and creating global brands for Indian textile and clothing products.
As part of this endeavour, the Ministry of Textiles has started a bold initiative of mitigating the major challenge of scale of operation through the proposed mega textile parks. In this connection, Ravi Capoor, Secretary (Textiles) convened a meeting with industry stakeholders and senior officials of various state governments on February 17 and gathered the necessary inputs to frame the scheme. T Rajkumar, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) thanked the Union Minister of Textiles and Secretary (Textiles) and appreciated the unique initiative of the Ministry of Textiles for encouraging scale of operation through its Mega Textile Parks Scheme.
He stated that the flagship programme of TUF Scheme had attracted over Rs 4 lakh crore during the last two decades while the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks enabled the power loom sector and a few other decentralised sectors to consolidate in different clusters and opt for modern technology. In addition to this, a few large players also could take advantage of SITP. Rajkumar further pointed out that the country has been suffering with the issue of scale of operation and new entrants like Bangladesh, Vietnam, etc. have grabbed the space vacated by China due to cost competitiveness and scale of operation.
He further stated that at the global brands’ meeting chaired by the Union Minister of Textiles, most of the brands with retail setups in India had stated that they had to import from countries like China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka due to volume and cost advantage as India does not have large players to meet their demands. Rajkumar also stated that the central government is making concerted efforts to attract FDI, joint venture projects and also encouraging large vertically integrated textile giants in the country to make investments in the proposed mega textile parks by setting up large-scale vertically integrated textile manufacturing units.
He further stated that the government is contemplating extending maximum support for the infrastructure facilities including land by the state governments, water, power, road connectivity, special priority at ports, relaxation in labour laws, etc. while planning to market the scheme in different countries to attract FDI and joint venture projects jointly with the state governments. Rajkumar concluded by saying that he is very optimistic that the proposed Mega Textile Parks Scheme would open more opportunities for the textile industry to cater to domestic as well as international markets.