In a bid to change Amravati’s depressing profile after the reports of farmers’ suicides, the Maharashtra government plans to develop it as a textiles city to promote this industry in cotton-growing areas of Vidarbha region.
“The state government is promoting textile industries in suicide-prone region of Vidarbha to give a value addition and alternate market linkage to the cotton growers of the region on the lines of sugarcane belt of Western Maharashtra to prevent farmers’ suicide in the cotton-growing region of western part of Vidarbha,” chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis said after laying the foundation stone for a Raymond’s manufacturing facility near Amravati.
Cotton cultivators, often with small land holdings can thrive only if they have an assured market. The government wants to adopt the western Maharashtra model where sugar mills and sugar cane cultivators are inter-linked and inter-dependent.
The chief minister said the Nandgaon industrial estate would be developed as textile park and Amravati be recognised as a textiles city.
The Maharashtra government had signed an MoU with Raymond Group of Companies for a textile park and manufacturing hub worth Rs 1,400 crore, during the Make In India Week in February.
Raymond Ltd chairman and managing director Gautam Singhania said his company will invest Rs 1,400 crore and the unit will provide job opportunities to about 8,000 persons.
Raymond is targeting production by March 31, 2017. The textile major has a unit in Yavatmal and cotton growers will benefit from the second unit in Amravati, Fadnavis said.
Amravati as the leading textile destination of the country will become a reality in the next four years. As, in less than two months, all formalities have been completed paving the way for the mega-textile hub to start work.
The 14 textile parks, complete with manufacturing and apparel units in Vidarbha and Marathwada, have been taken up to provide a robust market for cotton cultivators. The chief minister recalled, the white gold tag associated with cotton cash crop has lost its shine because of the agro-distress in the last two decades. The textile policies linked to agro-industries will help take cotton crop to its old glory.
