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'Almost all companies are importing the latest machines'
D K Dasgupta
Vice President (production), Nahar Group
Of late, the weaving sector, especially the organised sector, in India
has witnessed a lot of development and tremendous improvement in modernisation
of existing units. The weaving units have the latest technology and machinery
not only for weaving but also for weaving preparatory. What is happening
today is a replay action of things about 10-15 years ago when everyone
wanted to expand and modernise their units. However, at that time companies
bought second-hand machines to meet the quality requirements. Now, the
trend has changed because companies have realised the importance of increasing
the technological capacity to overcome the blind capacity of increasing
the production at low cost. Companies like Nahar, Malwa, Welspun, etc
are investing large sums in the latest technology in preparatory machines,
warping and sizing. Earlier only a handful of industries were importing
machinery for weaving depending more on Indian manufacturers, however,
now almost all companies are importing good machinery from Germany, Switzerland,
Japan, to upgrade their facilities. Seeing the modernisation trend even
Indian manufacturers have improved their products and now one sees really
good quality weaving machinery, including micro-processor controlled machinery.
The steep competition in airjet looms, rapier looms bears testimony to
the fact that modernisation is progressing at a fast pace. Talking of
exports and post-MFA period, we are exporting and it is due to our modern
and high-tech machines. I am sure that if the present trend continues
then it will be feasible to achieve the export target of US$ 25 billion
by 2010. I would say the growth and development in the private sector
is fantastic and poised to grow further. Of course, there's need to cut
down the cost per meter of fabric if we have to compete with China. For
this, the government has to take some initiatives like improving the infrastructure,
which also includes lowering the power cost, etc. Latest technology in
warping machines, sizing machines and looms and expansion of weaving units
and mills is a pointer towards the fact that modernisation is progressing
pretty well in the industry.
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'There is a move towards shuttleless looms installation,
but not in sufficient volumes'
Shishir Jaipuria, President, NITMA
In 2000, there were about 8000 shuttleless looms in the organised sector
which were mostly new. At the same time, the unorganised sector had about
18,000 second-hand shuttleless looms which were never part of the statistics.
Today, at the end of year 2004 we have installed another 800 new shuttleless
looms in organised sector and about 12,000 second-hand shuttleless looms
in the unorganised sector. In this scenario, the answer to the question
has modernisation progressed in weaving becomes difficult to answer. The
country is looking forward to making a quantum jump in shuttleless looms
installation as well as large scale processing facilities. The move is
there in this direction but it is not in sufficient volume in any measure.
Since 1999, Rs 7000 crore investment has been made in a period of five
years under the TUF scheme against the target of Rs 25000 crore. Our target
for exports by 2010 is US$ 25 billion from the existing figure of US$
12 billion. The speed of modernisation is not enough to achieve the targets
though the markets in USA and EU may be waiting for us.
As opposed to India, in Pakistan an investment of US$ 5 billion has already
been made in the last five years upto 2005 and it is expected that till
2010 investment of US$ 1 billion per year will continue to be made and
most of it will be in weaving, processing, spinning, knitting and garmenting
in the same order of importance, in volume. On a recent visit to Pakistan
in January, we visited a new weaving facility near Lahore. In a 96 shuttleless
looms facility an investment of Rs 70 crore had been made to produce 45,000
metres of fabric per day. In other words, installing of 20,000 new shuttleless
looms requires an investment of Rs 15,000 crore (IN PKR) or Rs 12,000
crore (INR). It is obvious that we are not making sufficient headway to
meet the rising demand due to quota removal in USA and EU. Sluggishness
of our policy framework and its implementation is proverbial. Let us keep
our fingers crossed. It appears that the western world is eagerly looking
forward to the Indian textile industry to meet its demand in view of their
reluctance to completely depend upon one single source, China.
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