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‘Textile units should come forward to avail upgradation programmes’

The domestic textile industry calls for urgent modernisation as it enters the post-MFA regime. The process of upgradation, so far, has moved at a much slower pace. In an interview with Arbind Gupta, Mr Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, Union textiles minister highlights some of the measures that are expected to boost the future upgradation programme.

Past few years have not been very encouraging for the textile industry, even as a slow recovery has been noticed of late.....

The textile industry is slowly coming out of depression and expected to play a very important role in the future economic growth of our country. The government has very well realised this and is in the process of devising a long-term policy for the industry. Few concrete measures have already been initiated in this regard. I am very much confident that the domestic textile base will be able to face the challenges and grow at a much faster rate in future. Our ministry along with other concerned ministries will take all possible steps to make the industry competitive enough.

The TUFS which has been in operation for more than four years, has not been able to attract substantial participation from various sectors of the textile industry. Your comment.

So far as the scheme is concerned, I don’t see there is any problem as such. Still we have been making changes time to time in order to make it more acceptable. In fact, the depressed market condition has been the major reason for the scheme not invoking satisfactory response. But now with the overall situation looking up, more and more investments will take place with the help of this scheme. The ministry has tried to made some modifications that will widen the scope of the scheme and insists more number of textile mills to undertake modernisation. I hope, the textile industry will make full use of this timely and unique opportunity to acquire state-of-the-art technologies to improve its productivity, quality and cost competitiveness and thereby ensure its long-term growth prospects. This scheme requires full support of the textile machinery industry.

The powerloom sector has failed to draw enough attention of policy makers. What role will it play in the future growth of the industry?

Our ministry is fully aware of the significance of the decentralised powerloom sector and wants it to continue to play the same role it has played so far. In fact, we now want it to play a bigger role in the export market and towards that end there is need to produce globally competitive products. The sector calls for urgent upgradation of technology. The government has set a target of induction of 2.5 lakh semi-automatic/automatic shuttle looms and 50,000 shuttleless looms. Since the weavers may find it difficult to afford the cost of installation of these modern looms, feasibility of providing upfront assistance to this sector and also an increased interest reimbursement are under active consideration.

The domestic textile machinery industry has been passing through a very difficult phase. What kind of role can it play in the ongoing modernisation process?

The machinery industry has to bear the impact of the fortunes of the textile industry. This has an adverse bearing on its investment plans and capacity utilisation. The entire range of machinery required for spinning is manufactured by our domestic industry, however, in the absence of economically viable demand, it has not built up enough capacity to produce hi-tech weaving, knitting, processing and garmenting machines.

There is no doubt that the industry has no other alternative but to get itself modernised by acquiring the latest knowhow from abroad or by evolving such knowhow by its own efforts. Technological obsolescence in textile machinery industry has inhibited its capacity to produce hi-tech machines. The programmes initiated by the government under the textile package for upgradation of technology in weaving and processing segments coupled with the operation of TUFS will boost the demand for hi-tech textile machinery. In order to meet this demand from the textile industry, a number of units in the textile engineering sector would require rapid upgradation and modernisation.

What strategy should the local machinery sector adopt to come out of the current condition? The government has allowed imports of machinery despite the fact that the domestic industry is unable to generate enough demand. What is your view?

In the era of globalisation, the textile machinery industry has to produce machinery which is competitive in terms of technology as well as cost to persuade the textile industry to source their machinery locally rather than importing them. The textile machinery industry while planning their future production of hi-tech machinery will have to choose the appropriate state- of-the-art technology, which leads to energy savings and is cheaper as compared to imported machinery so as to reduce the interest burden of the textile manufacturer.