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Gherzi Eastern offers training programme to TxC officers

Reena Mital - Mumbai

Gherzi Eastern has completed its second session of the training programme towards equipping officers of the Textile Commissioner’s (TxC) Office to provide comprehensive services and consultancy to the decentralised sectors. The last session of programme has been scheduled for November 11.

Speaking to Express Textile, Mr R R Gosai, joint general manager, Gherzi Eastern, and the programme coordinator, said, “The textile commissioner has realised the need for such a training programme, and has at least made a beginning. There is an urgent need to change the mindset of the officers, who for very long now, have been involved in licensing and policing work, and have remained largely unaware of the changes in the marketplace, and their changed responsibilities.”

It is learnt that training and refresher courses have not been given much importance at the TxC’s Office, with a large number of officers having undergone absolutely no training, refresher, orientation programmes, even after almost 20 years of service. By their own admission, “We did not know there was so much happening in the textile industries globally, the technology developments, etc. The training programme has made us aware of the need for modernisation, and has shown ways of tackling the various issues the industry, especially in the decentralised sector, face.”

The six-day training programmes undertaken by around 40 officers of the TxC Office, covered topics such as the world textile scenario, structural changes, development in weaving technologies and their applicability to the powerloom sector. The programme addressed the issue of preparing bankable feasibility reports, which the small sector is unable to do at present, and also discussed the need and method of analysing the performance of powerloom units, and how to improve the same. According to Mr Gosai, “The basis of the training programme is boosting TUF utilisation by the powerloom sector.”

Following the training programme, officers from various regional offices have suggested a closer cooperation with Gherzi Eastern, for educating the industry in those regions about the need for modernisation, and the ways of doing so. It is expected that the consultancy firm may attend meetings that the TxC regional offices will organise with the industry associations soon. Says Mr Gosai, “The officers have to now clearly tell the industry that death is certain without modernisation. Studies that we have conducted clearly show the cost disadvantages that India suffers, vis-a-vis its competitors - Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka.” He further stated that instead of looking upon its competitors as threats, the industry needs complement its counterpart Asian industries. “The industry has to identify areas of complementarity. China today imports almost US$ 20 billion worth of textiles, we have not tapped this market. Textile imports of Indonesia are 50 per cent of its total textile exports, value wise, this also is an opportunity. The Indian industry’s biggest advantage is self-sufficiency in all textile raw materials, this needs to be tapped to its fullest potential,” he said.

According to Mr Gosai, Gherzi Eastern has shown the officers the direction in which they have to take the industry, but implementation at the root level has to be done by them. Even as a number of officers were confident of serving the industry better, some felt that certain issues were left unaddressed, such as the cluster approach to development which the government is following. Also, preparing bankable project reports is a cumbersome and complex task, and needs to be dealt with in detail. However, they agree that a six-day session is too short to address all issues, and similar exercises on an yearly basis would be helpful.