The Textiles Ministry is working on a structure to roll out a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for technical textiles and manmade fibre (MMF) segment recently and is also finalising a new Indian textile policy, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani has said.
“We are currently on the anvil of also bringing to the fore the new Indian textile policy. The last time India had a textile policy was two decades ago,” said Irani at a virtual conference on Aatmanirbhar roadmap organised as part of Assocham Foundation Week 2020.
Technical textiles and MMF are amongst the 10 additional sectors for which the Union Cabinet recently approved the PLI scheme to boost manufacturing and exports. The final proposals of PLI for individual sectors will be appraised by the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) and approved by the Cabinet.
The Minister said that when policy reforms are looked at, the idea called ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ cannot come to fruition if work takes place in silos, according to a statement circulated by Assocham. “So while on one hand, the Centre undertakes agricultural reforms, on the other we leverage technology to provide farm support and undertake MSP operations,” she said.
Sharing details on the rise of MSP operations in cotton, the Minister said that in 2013-14, MSP operations in the cotton segment were merely worth ₹90 crore while last year the MSP operations had crossed ₹28,500 crore, according to the statement. “This season, I am proud to announce that in the cotton segment, MSP operations worth ₹14,659 crore have already been undertaken and 9.63 lakh farmers producing cotton in the country have directly received into their bank accounts an amount of ₹11,799 crore. this is done in only two months,” according to Irani.
Highlighting the link between agriculture and industry, Irani pointed out that today India produced only four lakh bales of extra-long stable (ELS) cotton. Looking at agricultural reforms, if the industry combined its efforts with the farming community, the potential growth of production of ELS cotton could be increased from four lakh bales to 50 lakh bales. The business for Indian cotton textiles industry could then increase from the current $18 billion to $80 billion, which is the potential that needed to be leveraged and explored.