Tamil Nadu to invest Rs 104 crore in 5 textile mills

<< The times of India article>>  The state government will modernise five co-operative textile mills at the cost of Rs 104 crore, said principal secretary, textiles, Tamil Nadu, G Santhanam. The government also plans to re-open the closed co-operative textile mill in Ramanathapuram district at an outlay of Rs 18 crore.

Speaking at the sidelines of a conference organised by Indian Cotton Federation here on Saturday, Santhanam claimed that the five mills located in Kanyakumari, Theni, Ettayapuram, Pudukottai, and Krishnagiri, have started to make profits. The total capacity of the five mills up for modernisation would be around 1 lakh spindles. Another 12 sick mills would either be revived or the excess land in these places allotted to other government departments, Santhanam added.

Joint secretary, union textiles ministry, V Srinivas, who was in town to attend the conference said several projects floated under the 'National Fibre Policy' (NFP) have been incorporated into the 12{+t}{+h} Five Year Plan that begins this year after their financial requirements turned out to be higher than what was projected.

"We have been working on the policy for 30 months but difficulties were there in (getting) the financial outlay," said Srinivas. Since the policy would require financing for the next 10 years, projects under NFP had come under review.

The Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) has been extended to the 12th plan period and an outlay of Rs 15,886 crore has been made for the scheme during this period, Srinivas said. The working group on textiles has recommended an outlay of around Rs 34,000 crore for the plan period, he said.

Processing parks would be set up in seven states under the integrated processing development scheme, Srinivas said. The parks would be set up on a public-private partnership model. "Considerable emphasis has to be laid on strengthening the weaving and processing sectors," he said, while speaking at a conference on challenges facing the cotton trade and industry 2013 organized by the Indian Cotton Federation.

India's inherent strengths in cotton yarn need to be augmented by fabric manufacturing and processing, Srinivas noted. Emphasizing the need for timely data on the cotton crop, he said that the Cotton Distribution (Collection of Statistics) Bill 2012 has been framed to put in place a system for improved data transparency and make available real time data for considered policy making.

"We hope to put in place legislation in the coming months to provide India with a system of data collection that will strengthen our databases significantly," Srinivas said. Though the south-west monsoon has been lower in some places and consumption is expected to increase in the current cotton season (October-September), there has been no demand on restricting exports, he said.

"It would be a good year for cotton," Srinivas said. Since adequate stocks are available in the domestic market, conditions appear favourable for the cotton trade in the 2012-13 season, he said.

Meanwhile, the cotton industry has appealed to the state government to slash the 5% sales tax on yarn. They argue that it is just 2% in states like the Andhra Pradesh, a major competitor for TN. Similarly, the industry has demanded that the state government do away with a 1% market committee cess on waste cotton, which is collected by the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee.