Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) chairman, Sanjay Jain welcomed the ‘Comprehensive Scheme for the Development of Knitting & Knitwear Sector with various components under PowerTex India.’ Under the dynamic leadership of the Prime Minister of India, the Union Minister of Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani today launched the much-awaited scheme.
CITI chairman hailed it as a historic step which would create value to the bottom of the pyramid. Since the Knitting and Knitwear Industry is predominantly MSME in size and mainly located in a decentralised sector, the scheme will help to promote Knitting and Knitwear Sector and thereby achieve the inclusive growth in the country and is a positive step to fulfil our Honourable Prime Minister’s Make in India dream.
CITI Chairman further stated that the scheme will enhance the sector’s contribution to the nation building as Knitting and Knitwear Sector is one of the major segments of the entire textile value chain and contributes about 27 per cent of the total cloth production and about 15 per cent of knitted fabric is being exported besides export of knitted apparel. He further informed that the share of knitted garments in value terms is about 38 per cent in the overall export of clothing.
Mr Jain also pointed out that despite knitwear sector growing at a much faster pace than weaving, it had been neglected till date and all schemes were just targeted for handloom and powerloom Sector despite this segment being of similar nature and character. Today knitwear is in everyone’s wardrobe in the form of innerwear, socks, t-shirts, leggings etc and its clusters badly needed this support. He said the industry had no words to thank Hon’ble Prime Minister and Hon’ble Union Minister of Textiles for this great initiative which will change the structure of knitwear industry in the coming days. The main clusters to benefit from this announcement are Tirupur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Kanpur and NCR.
The highlights of the schemes are as follows:
- Creation of new service centres by providing financial assistance up to Rs 2 crores per knitting and knitwear service centres for adequate facilities for testing, trading, sample development, consultancy, troubleshooting, facilitation services to the knitting and knitwear clusters on PPP model with participation from industry/ association.
- Modernisation and upgradation of existing PSCs in the knitting and knitwear clusters by equipping the existing powerloom centres run by the TRAs or EPCs or any other textile association with requisite machinery for training/ testing purposes required for knitting and knitwear industries, financial assistance up to Rs 20 lakh/ centre will be provided.
- Group Workshed Scheme for Knitting and Knitwear unit to facilitate the establishment of group Workshed for modern knitting machines and/or Knitwear which will provide the required scale of economy for business operations and improved working condition.
- Yarn Bank Scheme for Knitting and Knitwear unit to interest-free corpus fund to SPVs or consortium of knitting units to enable them to purchase yarn at a wholesale rate and give the yarn to the small knitting units thereby avoiding middleman/ local suppliers brokerage on sales of yarn. The Govt. is providing interest-free corpus fund up to Rs. 2 crores per yarn bank.
- Common facility Centre for knitting and knitwear units to establish CFC in various knitting and knitwear clusters for providing common facilities like processing, dyeing, printing, design development, testing facilities, ETP, etc. The Govt. is providing the subsidy maximum up to Rs. 4 crores including the yarn depot per project.
- Pradhan Mantri Credit Scheme to provide adequate and timely financial assistance to meet their credit requirements for investment needs for new entrepreneurs belonging to SC/ST and women category. The financial assistance is provided in the form of margin money subsidy at 25 per cent basic cost of the eligible new machinery at a ceiling of Rs 25 lakhs.
- Solar Energy Scheme to alleviate the problem of power cut/ shortage, by proving financial assistance/ capital subsidy to small units for installation of the solar photovoltaic plant to improve utility, efficiency, productivity, etc. Financial assistance up to 50 per cent is provided for installation of on-grid solar photovoltaic (without battery) and off-grid solar photovoltaic (with battery). Enhanced benefits of 75 per cent and 90 per cent for SC/ST entrepreneurs in the cost of solar panels.
- Facilitation/ IT awareness/ publicity & Market Development assistance
Jain stated that the above schemes will also help to achieve the objectives of “Make in India” programme as it will facilitate investment, enhance skill development and build infrastructure for the development of Knitting and Knitwear Sector. He also observed that the scheme will help to promote innovation by bringing in latest designs, brands, skill development and upgradation.
The Scheme will also help to achieve economic, social and environmental sustainability in the textile sector.
Jain concluded by saying that the scheme was a long pending demand of the industry and will catalyse more investment and employment in the textile industry and will provide a base for export of knitted apparels from the country.
