Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani has said that production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the textile industry is almost ready, but the National Textile Policy was taking time as labour and agriculture reforms were earlier being awaited and now the policy needed to strike a balance between Government’s allocation of resources and the industry’s preparedness to take that allocation and convert it into opportunity.
Ministry of Textiles (MoT) has done much of the groundwork and the scheme is almost ready.
The objective of the scheme is to create global champions in MMF apparel and technical textiles by providing incentives from 3 per cent to 15 per cent on stipulated incremental turnover for 5 years.
Addressing an event, the Minister said that MoT is working towards reducing the industry’s dependence on imported machine tools and is reaching out to engineering organisations to step in to meet the gap in domestic machinery production and demand.
It is worth mentioning here that India is dependent on import regarding majority of textile and apparel machinery.
The Textiles Ministry, under the guidance of Principal Scientific Advisor, K. Vijay Raghavan, had reached out to IITs across the country, particularly Chennai, to highlight to them what the machinery needs of the industry were.
Regarding delay in the finalisation of the National Textiles Policy, the Minister said that the policy could not have been conclusive when other things were developing.
“The prominent reforms in agriculture and labour had happened but the new policy needed to find a balance between Government’s speedy allocations and the industry’s preparedness to take that allocation and convert it into opportunity,” the Minister said.
