New Delhi, Mar 25 (KNN) The budget allocation for Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS) has been declined to Rs 700 crore in 2019-20 FY compared to previous FY where the allocation stood above 1000 crore.

According to government data, shared by the Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani in Rajya Sabha on Thursday, in FY 2017-18, the allocation was 2013.00 while in 2018-19 it took a jump of Rs 287 crore and reached at 2300 crore and in 2019-20 it fell by 1600 crore to settled at 700 crore.

''The Ministry of Textiles has been implementing Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (TUFS) since 1999 to facilitate technology upgradation of the textiles industry in the country.  The scheme has undergone changes from time to time in terms of patterns of assistance provided and level of machinery upgradation desired.  The present version of the scheme i.e. Amended TUFS (ATUFS) was launched in January 2016 to adopt innovative new technology in all the sub-sectors of textiles industry except Spinning by way of one time Capital Investment Subsidy (CIS) for eligible benchmarked machinery for a period of seven years from 2015-16 to 2021-22,'' the Textiles Minister said.

''The scheme aims to promote ease of doing business in the country, achieve the vision of generating employment and promoting exports through “Make in India’’ with "Zero effect and Zero defect" in manufacturing and promoting domestic textile clusters.  Every eligible individual entity is entitled for reimbursement of CIS under this scheme as per the rates,'' she added.

ATUFS is implemented through i–TUFS portal which is an end-to-end solution with features like Automatic UID generation upon registration of subsidy applications, submission of documents through digital signatures, geo-tagged and time stamped photographs of machinery, tracking of claims etc.

Geo-tagging of installed machinery during physical verification has helped in ensuring credentials and location of the assets for which subsidy has been claimed.

''Provision of mandatory digital signature for submission of applications and verification of the claims has helped in ensuring the authenticity of claims and improved transparency,'' the Minister added.