The textile and apparel industry has welcomed the budget announcements on Wednesday as pragmatic.
The Southern India Mills’ Association has said that it will take steps to implement the scheme announced in the budget to increase productivity of Extra Long Staple (ELS) cotton.
According to Ravi Sam, chairman of the association, since the introduction of Bt technology only for long staple cotton varieties, the textile industry started facing shortage of ELS cotton. The industry’s requirement of ELS cotton annually is around 20 lakh bales while the country produces only five lakh bales and heavily depends on imports of superior quality ELS cotton.
T. Rajkumar, chairman of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, said the textile industry “eagerly looks forward to further details of the policy” regarding promotion of ELS cotton production. The government has identified five new HS Codes for cotton, for further classification of cotton as per staple length. “This will help calibrate policy support for the segments which are import dependent or need further incentivisation,” he said.
Chairman of Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council Sunil Patwari said the announcements in the budget will bring major relief for MSMEs in the textile sector, helping them steadily compete in the global markets. However, he appealed for inclusion of cotton yarn among the list of 410 items that are eligible for interest subvention.
K.M. Subramanian, president of Tiruppur Exporters’ Association, said the priority given for infrastructure development “will go a long way for reduction of logistics cost, a major need for the exporting units.”
While welcoming the increased budget allocation of ₹900 crore for ATUF Scheme for 2023-2024 against ₹600 crore allocated in 2022-2023, he hoped the increased allocation will clear pending claims of the scheme. But, there is no announcement on continuance of ATUF scheme, he said.
According to A.C. Easwaran, president of South India Hosiery Manufacturers’ Association, the proposals for digital lockers for MSMEs, malls to display products of one district one product scheme, etc., will support MSMEs in the textile sector.
