Confederation of Indian Industry (Tirupur district council) and Sripuram Trust, a body formed of various textile stakeholders, have come out with a vision document seeking immediate budgetary support on certain issues to wriggle Tirupur knitwear cluster out of the operational bottlenecks encountered.
The paper, that was prepared after incorporating voices of the different segments in knitwear production chain, would be handed over to the Union Government.
Cargo terminal
Sripuram Trust coordinator T. R. Vijayakumar told The Hindu that one of the imperative needs of the industry was the creation of an international air cargo terminal as an extension of Coimbatore airport.
“This is essential considering that about 20 per cent of the apparel consignments from Tirupur for foreign countries, which are usually exported in the case of emergencies/urgency, go by air though the major chunks are sent through sea ports. Presently, we have to depend at the airport facilities in Bengaluru or Chennai, which are many hundreds of kilometres away, to send the cargoes.
Apart from the requisition for funds to create accommodation for migrant labourers, the industry wanted rationalisation of duty structure on man made fibres since the demand for apparels made of such fibres were on a rise in the global apparel market.
“Industry feel that the present import duty of man made fibres like polyester and viscose of 28 per cent is extremely high and hence, should be brought to the bandwidth of around two to three percent to make the products from here cost competitive,” Raja M. Shnmugam, chairman of CII (Tirupur district council), said.
