'Cotton textile industries have a potential to invest upto Rs 4,000 crore'

Mumbai: The cotton textile industry have a potential to invest up to Rs 4,000 crore leading to generation of 50,000 new jobs if the government accepts the sector's demands in the forthcoming Budget, a top industry official has said. "We have urged the government that Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) should be extended during the blackout period from June 29, 2010 to April 27, 2011, when the scheme was suspended to all cases which have been left out for no fault of the industry," Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council of India (Texprocil) Deputy Chairman R K Dalmia said.

Dalmia urged Textile Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar to restore the benefit as investments made during the 18 month gap are eligible investments before and after extension of the TUFS. Should the Rs 1,000 crore of TUFS money surrendered is given back to the textile industry, we can assure that it would help the industry invest up to Rs 4,000 crore and kickstart the process of capacity creation leading to creation of 50,000 new jobs, he said.

Texprocil, a government constituted body, is seeking duty cut on textile machinery and extending interest rate subvention of three per cent on rupee export credit to cotton textile exports to mitigate high cost of export finance. "We would have performed even better but for certain impediments we face on account of high tariffs imposed by some countries and discriminatory Free Trade Agreements (FTA's) signed by others," Texprocil Executive Director Siddhartha Rajagopal said.