Extending Support

Union textile ministry is likely to help upgrade the textile machinery sector.

- Arbind Gupta

The union textile ministry is mulling a move to extend its support to the ₹10,000 crore domestic textile machinery manufacturing sector in upgrading its production base. the ministry, which has been carrying out a comprehensive programme under the tuf scheme for the last decade or so to fund the textile industry upgrade its base, is now planning to strengthen the impact of some of the initiatives being carried out by the textile machinery-making sector, to fortify its weaker links in weaving and processing.

The textile ministry may work out on the modalities to earmark a portion of its r&d budget (for the textile industry) for research and innovation projects in the textile machinery sector which, despite having its existence for several years now, have struggled to meet the technological needs of the domestic textile industry. over 70 per cent of the machinery requirement is today met by imports. the imports stood at ₹10,305 crore in 2015-16 – up from ₹8,858 crore in 2014-15. (the textile machinery sector falls not under the textile ministry but under the union ministry for heavy industries & public enterprise, which has not been able to look after the sector effectively due to lack of a focussed approach.)