New Delhi, Mar 20 (KNN) With the Lok Sabha elections just few months away, the textile industry listed the expectations from the upcoming new government while talking to KNN India.

Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), Sanjay Jain said that textile industry provides huge employment to the rural women and which is very important for inclusive growth. But still we are lacking behind.

He said, “We request from the upcoming government that all taxes and duties which are not being refunded or given to us by the duty drawbacks should be given to exporters, following the basic principle that no exporter should have a burden of taxes.”

Talking about the recently announced major and apparels for the textile industry he said, “The government recently announced major and apparels for textile. However yarn, fabric and rest of the value chain have been left out.”

“So my request is that the whole value chain from yarn to garments to get complete refund of taxes and duties,” he added.

Demanding for a National Textile Industry Jain said, “Secondly our request to the government is that we want a National Textile Policy in which Central government should work with state government.”

“This will help in all the state and central policies to maintain balance and equilibrium and work towards the common vision,” he added.

Giving importance to cotton he said that we also need a clear cut fiber policy which should cover mainly cotton, as cotton productivity in the country is globally one of the lowest and there has been no improvement in the last few years.

Farmers are also suffering because of this situation, so we need to work on this as a war footing basis, he said.
Speaking on the disadvantages due to the competitive environment he said, “India today has a serious disadvantage against its competitors when it comes to multi country agreements.”

“Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri lanka, Myanmar and also African countries enjoy much easier access to the main dominant markets of the world,” he added.

We have been requesting the government to seriously pick-up the issue with Europe and negotiate with China on yarn and fabric so that we are on level same field with our main competitors, he said.

Jain further added that the 50% of disadvantage for the textile industry is due the difference in the level playing field. The industry is not looking for subsidies we are looking for a level playing field.

If government cannot do so then we request to compensate the industry for it grows in the competitive environment, he said.

President of Textile Processors Association, Syed Farid said, “It’s been many years that the subsidies for textile industries are still the same. There has been no change in the rates of the schemes made for textile industry which is proving to be a great failure on part of the government.”

So we request government to make necessary changes in schemes for the textile industry to flourish, he added. (KNN/JM)