The Government has sanctioned 21 new textile parks under the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks at a project cost of Rs. 2,100 crores to be implemented over a period of 36 months.
The Minister for Commerce, Industry and Textiles, Mr. Anand Sharma, as Chairman of the Project Approval Committee under the scheme, has accorded approval to the recommendations of the Inter Ministerial Project Scrutiny Committee which examined 55 proposals for new textile parks in the country.
The scheme seeks greenfield investments in the textile sector on a public-private partnership basis with the objective of setting up world class infrastructure for the textiles industry.
Mr. Sharma said: “Sanction of new textile parks would catalyze significant additional investments with the industry utilizing the benefits both under the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP) for development of common infrastructure and under the Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (TUFS) for installation of plant and machinery.”
The Government has stepped up the allocation under TUFS from Rs. 8,000 crores to Rs. 15,404 crores in the 11th Plan, and under the SITP an allocation of Rs. 400 crores was made for sanction of the new textile parks in April last. The new textile parks would leverage an investment of over Rs. 9,000 crores and provide employment to four lakh textile workers. The Government would finance common infrastructure with a subsidy of upto Rs. 40 crores per textile park.
The Government received good response to the roadshows held in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Mumbai for seeking proposals for textile parks. The proposals received were scrutinized by the inter-ministerial committee on the basis of project cost, land size, net worth of investors, employment generation and the value chain to be developed by the industry.
The Government also sought to ensure balanced regional development, promote the textile industry in north-eastern States and in States where the industry is in a nascent stage of development, and promote textile parks in co-operative & handloom sectors.
Six new textile parks have been sanctioned in Maharashtra, four in Rajasthan, two each in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and one each in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Jammu & Kashmir and West Bengal. The product mix in these parks would include apparels and garments, hosiery, silk, processing, and technical textiles, including medical textiles, carpets and powerlooms.
“The focus of the Government has been to ensure value addition through aggregation to best utilize India’s raw material surplus in cotton and cotton yarn for enhanced labor employment and export earnings”, said the Minister.
Lead investors heading the special purpose vehicles of the listed textile parks and the project management consultant firms would be invited by the Government soon to enter into MoUs for implementing the projects. The Government seeks to ensure timely implementation of the sanctioned projects, and changes to avoid cost and time overruns will be incorporated in the MoUs to be entered into by the Government under the scheme.
Mr. Sharma also said that, given the considerable demand for textile parks in the country and the success of the scheme in the 11th Plan, his Ministry would be seeking a higher allocation in the 12th Plan.
It may be noted that of the 40 textile parks sanctioned in the 11th Plan, 24 have already started operation and have attracted investments of Rs. 18,880 crores, with a Government subsidy of Rs. 1,420 crores.