The Minister of Textiles,
Shri Kashiram Rana, has called upon the States to provide an assured
supply of electricity to the powerloom sector at reasonable tariff.
He said that erratic supply and long power cuts were active discouragements
to the sector. When the installed capacity was idle for want of
power, no one could raise productivity. He said that unlike the
large industry powerloom units would not be able to create and
rely on captive power. It was for the States to provide this infrastructure,
he said. He suggested that this could be achieved by a change
or realignment of the power policies of the State Electricity
Boards or by creating Powerloom Parks with work sheds and captive
power supply. While appreciating the poor financial condition
of the States, Shri Rana also called for rationalisation of the
rates of octroi, entry tax and sales.
Presiding over the
meeting of the All India Powerloom Board here today, the Minister
announced that a new scheme to provide 20 per cent capital incentive
delinked to credits for installing new semi-automatic and automatic
looms of benchmarked features was on the anvil.
Shri Rana said that
as a welfare measure to the powerloom workers, a revised group
insurance scheme, "Prime Minister’s Bunkur Bima Yojana
(PMBBY), and "Work shed Scheme" are under
active inter-ministerial consultation.
Shri Rana said that
he had set up a three-member committee to review the functions,
management and building of Powerloom Service Centres (PSCs). Following
the recommendations of the Committee, the Government has initiated
a scheme for modernising and strengthening the PSCs by upgrading
their infrastructural facilities. Under the scheme, special training
was being organised for skill development and updating of technical
knowledge of officials of the PSCs on modern sophisticated looms,
techno-economic feasibility, testing of textiles and cluster development
programme. He added that during the 9th Plan, 21 out
of the total 44 PSCs were taken up for modernisation costing Rs.16.09
crore. The project would be continued during the 10th
Plan to cover the remaining PSCs.
The Textile Minister
said that over a period of time, since the inception of Technology
Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS), several modifications to its technical
as well as financial norms had been effected by the nodal agencies.
In addition to a five per cent reimbursement of interest on the
loan, the beneficiary decentralised powerloom unit was given the
option of a direct 12 per cent subsidy, to make the scheme more
attractive. To make margin money available, a combination of the
National Equity Fund Scheme (NEF) with TUFS has also been permitted.
He lamented that despite this, response was not encouraging. As
on 31.10.2002, only 0.99 per cent of total applications received,
sanctioned and disbursed under the TUFS, were from powerloom weaving
sector which amounted to less than 0.5 per cent of the estimated
number of powerloom units.
Various steps have
been taken by the Government to strengthen the sector. Powerloom
Programme Cluster Implementation Coordination Committees have
been constituted at powerloom cluster level in all major clusters
and State Level Powerloom Programme Co-ordination Committees in
10 of the powerloom concentrated States. A Focused Action Group
under the chairmanship of the Textile Commissioner has been constituted
to provide the desired thrust to this programme. Considering the
demand of the Textile Industry, especially from the decentralised
powerloom sector, Government had announced complete exemption
of Central Excise Duty on automatic shuttle less looms. Excise
duty has been reduced from 16 per cent to 12 per cent on processed
fabrics, made-ups and garments. Exemption limit for collateral
security for credit has been increased from Rs. 25,000 to Rs.
Five lakh in order to further increase the flow of credit to the
small-scale sector. Government has also allowed the import of
10,000 second-hand shuttle less looms, which are more than 10
years old.
