The ministries of textiles and power has taken the initiative to join hands for SAATHI (Sustainable & Accelerated Adoption of efficient Textile technologies to help small Industries), implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) who will procure energy efficient powerlooms, motors and rapier kits and give them to small and medium powerloom units at no upfront cost.

SAATHI will be jointly implemented by EESL and the office of the Textile Commissioner on a pan-India basis. To start the implementation, cluster wise demonstration projects and workshops will be organised in key clusters areas.

“The use of these efficient equipment would result in energy saving and cost saving to the unit owner and he would repay in installments to EESL over a period of four to five years. The aggregation of demand and bulk procurement will also lead to reduction in capital cost, benefits of which will be passed on to the powerloom units so that their repayment amount and period would reduce,” the official sources stated.

Being an unorganized, powerloom sector in India has a large number of micro and small units which produce 57 per cent of the total cloth in the country. There are 24.86 lakh powerloom units in this country, most of whom use obsolete technology. With a view to upgrade the technology, the Government of India has been implementing the INSITU upgradation of  plain powerlooms as part of Power Tex India under which plain powerlooms are attached with process control equipment leading to higher productivity, better quality and more than 50 per cent additional value realisation. So far, 1.70 lakh plain powerlooms have been upgraded under the scheme, with a total subsidy of Rs 186 crores.

– Apparel and Textile News, Apparel Talk, Indian Apparel