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DCTMI reconstituted, holds first meeting

Industry again moots R&D centre, fund, core group on exports
E-Tex Staff - Mumbai

After nearly a decade, the first meeting of the reconstituted Development Council for Textile Machinery Industry (DCTMI) was recently held under the chairmanship of Mr B N Jha, secretary, ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises, in Mumbai.

The entire gamut of issues concerning the textile machinery sector were raised and deliberated upon at the meeting. Several thrust areas were identified and action plans discussed. The industry has mooted the setting up of a dedicated research and development centre, exclusively for the textile machinery manufacturing industry, along with a research development fund to be created with support from the government, industry and external assistance.

At present, the textile machinery manufacturing sector, was operating at a mere 30 per cent of its installed capacity of Rs 3,600 crore. The industry catered to just 40-45 per cent of the domestic textile machinery requirement, the remaining being imported. Even as exports had shown a slight increase over the years, the full potential was still to be exploited.

Realising this, and the ample scope to export to developing and underdeveloped countries, including SAARC and African countries, it has been decided to form a core group to look into the various constraints the industry was facing in its export efforts. Besides this, another core group would be formed to look at the short and long term growth strategies for the industry. This group would also focus on issues on fiscal imbalances and threat from import of machinery of obsolete technologies, etc.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr Jha cautioned that, “India should not merely become a trading country, but should emerge as a stronger manufacturing hub for textile machinery, for which all possible growth segments need to be explored.”

The demands of the industry to set up an R&D centre and fund, or setting up of core groups to address the various issues are not new. In fact, an R&D centre had been set up by the industry some years back. “The R&D centre has not made much progress due to lack of funds. Moreover, R&D has not really been a priority with the majority of players in the industry,” say sources. The industry, some years back, had also chalked out an action plan for increasing exports, but that has remained only on paper. “There can be no action plan common for the entire industry, individual companies, as per their strengths, are doing what they can,” according to a leading textile machinery manufacturer.

Even as the industry has reiterated its demands, it remains to be seen how effectively these are met, not just by the government, but by the industry itself, and how effectively, if at all, the strategies and plans are implemented.