The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has urged the Tamil Nadu chief minister, J Jayalalithaa to announce a comprehensive textile policy to ensure financial viability and competitiveness of existing manufacturing facilities in the state and encourage value addition.
“The state urgently needs a comprehensive policy to sustain viability of huge manufacturing facilities and also attract investments for modernisation and value addition to make Tamil Nadu a global hub for textile manufacturing,” SIMA chairman, T Rajkumar told newsman in Coimbatore.
He said textile policies of other cotton-growing states have enabled textile units in those states to steal a march over those based in Tamil Nadu. A steep increase in transportation cost is hurting the textile industry in the state which procures 95 per cent of cotton from other states, Rajkumar said.
He claimed that SIMA had been closely working with the government to draft the policy for the entire textile value chain, and had already submitted its proposal. The association also has had several rounds of discussions with the authorities concerned.
Rajkumar suggested that the government should consider issues like VAT reduction on cotton textiles to 2 per cent from 5 per cent and removal of 1 per cent market committee cess on cotton and cotton waste. The government should also set a separate power tariff for the textile industry based on load factor and cost-to-serve basis, he added.
