The new government, under Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has laid emphasis on an economic vision based on increasing production, export and generating employment.
Particular attention will be given to generate productive employment opportunity for the youth, inclusive and participative growth, skill, scale and speed, develop Make in India brand, zero defect and finally zero effect on environment.
The new government has also taken many initiatives for the development of the textiles sector, considering that the sector accounts for 13.25 per cent of all exports and also is one of the largest employers.
The Scheme of Integrated Textile Parks (SITP) is one of the flagship schemes of the Ministry of Textiles which aims to assist to clusterise investments by providing financial support for world class infrastructure in parks.
According to the Textiles Ministry, implementation of the scheme was held up during the last one year due to administrative bottlenecks and no sanction was given for new parks.
It said the new government moved swiftly to resolve the issues and 13 new textiles parks were approved by the Project Approval Committee (PAC) chaired by the minister of state for textiles, Santosh Kumar Gangwar.
While these 13 textile parks will receive a grant to the extent of Rs 520 crore from government for infrastructure development, they are estimated to bring in private sector investment of about Rs 3,240 crore.
Alongside, this will generate direct employment for about 35,000 persons over the next three years, the Ministry said.
According to the Ministry, besides, a fresh advertisement would be issued calling for proposals for more SITP's for utilisation of the balance provision during the 12th plan period.
With a vision to create an export friendly economy the government introduced several initiatives, include, a proposal to extend 24/7 customs clearance facility at 13 airports and 14 sea ports, resulting in faster clearance of import and export cargo.
Duty free entitlement to garment exporters for import of trimmings, embellishments and other specified items increased from 3 per cent to 5 per cent. This initiative is expected to generate an additional apparel exports estimated at Rs 10,000 crore.
The proposal for imposing duty on branded items was also dropped providing relief to the entire value chain. (AR)
