Seeking to boost the growth of textiles and apparel sector, the Telangana government on Friday unveiled a bouquet of incentives, for new as well as existing enterprises. .
The announcement, by the State government whose TS-iPASS industry facilitation policy measures has caught the imagination of investors globally, comprises incentives under the heads of capital assistance; operational assistance; infrastructure support; capacity building and skill development support; and fibre-to-fabric incentive.
A segmented approach is to be adopted for extending the benefits, depending on the size of investment and/or the number of jobs to be created, a GO issued by the Industries and Commerce (Textiles) Department said.
In doing so, the focus would also be on ensuring against exploitation of the workforce by the enterprises.
Noting that while emphasis is on encouraging industry, to attract investments and generating employment opportunities for local population, the GO said the government expected the industry to provide a “fair and decent wage” to the workforce.
“If found that the workers are not being adequately compensated or are being exploited, then the government shall have the right to terminate the approvals granted and recover the monetary value of the incentives accorded till then,” the GO said.
The proposed incentives aim to create an enabling environment to encourage investments in downstream processing activities, mainly focusing on spinning, weaving, knitting, processing and garment manufacturing, including made-ups within the State.
Besides encouraging new units across the value chain, the incentives are to also to support existing units to modernise and expand and towards marketing and promotion activities.
As under existing industrial policy, units having investment over ₹ 200 crore and/or providing employment to more than 1,000 people would be treated as mega projects and considered for special tailor-made incentives, if need be.
The same benefit will also be extended to any other investment of a strategically important nature for the State, which is known for production of quality long staple cotton.
Though the State produces about 60 lakh bales, processing and value addition is largely limited to ginning and pressing. Roughly 10 lakh bales are utilised by the 35 spinning mills in the State that have a capacity of 9.3 lakh spindles.
