DIPP to seek Cabinet nod on scheme for leather sector

New Delhi, Feb 9 (KNN) The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) is planning to seek Cabinet’s approval for a scheme related to leather and footwear segment in order to boost manufacturing and create employment.

During his Budget Speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced plans to launch a scheme for the labour-intensive leather and footwear sector. The scheme supposed to be in line with the package extended to the textiles sector in June last year.

Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Ramesh Abhishek told reporters that leather and footwear sector is very important as it provides huge employment opportunities.

"In the next few weeks, we will be moving to the Cabinet for approval of this scheme," he told reporters here.

He said the DIPP has Indian Leather Development Programme (ILDP), which promotes the sector.

For the next three years, the department has prepared a programme to revamp the ILDP.

Like the textiles package has the provisions to promote labour employment and other benefits, "we have included those for the leather scheme also", he added.

In his Budget speech, Jaitley had said, "A special scheme for creating employment in the textiles sector has already been launched. A similar scheme will be implemented for the leather and footwear sector."

In June 2016, the government approved a Rs 6,000-crore special package for the textiles and apparel sector to create one crore new jobs in 3 years, attracting investments of USD 11 billion and generating USD 30 billion in exports.

Currently, about 30 lakh people are directly employed in the leather sector.

The government aims to increase the sectoral exports to USD 15 billion by 2020 from the current USD 7 billion.