February 7, 2002
`19’
TEXTILES WORKERS’ REHABILITATION SCHEME ENHANCED
SOME TEXTILE ITEMS OFF THE E.C.A. LIST
Central Committee on Economic Affairs has decided to enhance the coverage under Textiles Workers Rehabilitation Scheme (TWRS). Giving the details of the CCEA decision, the Minister of Textiles, Mr. Kashiram Rana, told the media persons in New Delhi that the workers of the closed private textile mills earning salary upto Rs. 3500 /- per month will now be entitled to seek assistance to the tune of Rs. 80,000 to Rs. 1.25 lakh from the Ministry of Textiles to rehabilitate themselves. Earlier the eligibility criteria for such assistance was upto a salary of Rs. 2500/- per month. With this, 22,000 (Twenty Two Thousand) more workers will be benefitted. Since the inception of this scheme in 1986, an amount of Rs. 152.47 crores has been disbursed amongst 68363 workers.
The Union Cabinet has also agreed to the long-pending demand of the textile industry to remove some of the items from the list of Essential Commodities Act. He said, textile machinery, silken textiles, textiles made from man-made cellulose and non-cellulose spun fibre and filament yarn, man made cellulose and non-cellulose staple fibre, yarn-made from wool, silk and cellulose and non cellulose spun-fibre have been removed from the list of 29 items covered under Essential Commodities Act. These items were kept under ECA in 1955, when there was an acute shortage of fabric. He stressed that though Government is in favour of removing all kind of restrictions, but keeping in view the interests of the handloom weavers, cotton and woollen textiles, cotton, cotton seed, cotton yarn, raw jute and jute textiles still continue in the list of Essential Commodities Act.
Expressing his concern over the condition of handloom weavers living in villages and for flung area, Mr. Rana said handloom sector requires protection from Government and this is not the right time to liberalise the handloom sector. Answering to a question regarding Bt. Cotton, he said, it should be allowed for cultivation. The Ministry of Textiles has already discussed this issue with Ministry of Agriculture. Mr. Rana favoured a cut in excise duty on textiles product in the Budget for the year 2002-2003 as it will lessen the burden on the products and the textile industry will be able to compete the challenges. Expressing his optimism, Mr. Rana said by the end of this year, textile export will grow and the negative growth will be below 10%.
Mr. Kashiram Rana reiterated the Ministry’s stand to protect the textile industry. He said the issue of imposition of anti-dumping duty on polyster staple fibre (P.S.F) imported from South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand has already been taken up with the Ministry of Commerce.