With the Union Ministry of Textiles looking to establish a minimum of 15 textile parks across the country, Santhosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State (Independent charge), has asked State governments to send their proposals for setting up the parks.
“The textile industry has good prospects for the economy and employment opportunities. We have been asking the help of the State governments to improve the industry,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an international conference at VIT University here on Friday.
Textiles is a very important sector but has been ignored in the last 10 years.
“The previous government, in the budget, had announced the setting up of a textile cluster in Tamil Nadu for which we will be coming here. I am also going to hold talks with officials,” he added.
Noting that there is plenty of scope in technical textile all over the country, he said the government has allotted Rs. 400 crore for technical textile in the north east region.
“We can do more in this field. We are asking every State government to participate in the textile park bids,” he said.
Referring to his recent visit to Tiruppur, he said it is an ideal place for the textile sector and provided good employment.
Earlier, speaking at the conference on Internationalisation of Higher Education and Quality Assurance, he stressed the importance of education in taking the country forward at the global level.
Primary education is important, and there were cases of dropouts in villages after classes V and X. Mr. Gangwar emphasised the need to pay attention to primary education in the country.
VIT University Chancellor G. Viswanathan called for measures from the government to draw students from abroad for higher education in the country.
“There are more than 700 universities and 37,000 colleges. But, only 20 to 25 Indian universities have international students. Government universities have not taken interest in this and I hope this will change in the future,” he said.
A number of countries, including those in the European Union and Brazil, have budgets for supporting students going out to study. But, there is no such programme in our country. “At least 200,000 students go out of the country to study every year. They mostly go to the U.S., Australia, the U.K., Germany and France,” he noted.
VIT University’s vice-chancellor V. Raju spoke.
