New textile policy to be announced soon: Santosh Kumar Gangawar.

TIRUPUR: The Union government would soon come out with a national textile policy, Minister of State for Textiles Santosh Kumar Gangwar said here today.

The new textile policy would be announced soon and to finetune the draft policy, a meeting of textile ministers of all states would be convened in September end, he said.

New textile parks would also be set up at the earliest, as the Ministry has received several applications in this regard, he said at the inauguration of the silver jubilee celebrations of Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) here.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has already announced a scheme in the Budget for setting up of 25 new textile parks, he said.

A textile venture capital fund would be set up with an initial capital of Rs 35 crore, which would be scaled up further, the MoS said.

He said the government provides Rs 70 crore subsidy for setting up processing park and had for the first time allocated Rs 500 crore for the initiative.

Gangawar claimed that the increase in the duty-free import of trimmings and embellishments from three to five per cent of the Free On Board value for the garmenting sector would result in additional export of value added garments to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore.

In his address, TEA President A Shaktivel urged the government to extend Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to the garment sector

"We will provide employment for 250 days (for MGREGS beneficiaries) and make them learn skills which will be useful for their entire lifetime," Sakthivel said.

Garment exports from Tirupur, with shipments to the tune of Rs 15 crore in 1985 and Rs 270 crore in 1990 when TEA was started, has grown to about Rs 18,000 crore (three billion) in 2013-14, Shaktivel said.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com