NDA govt’s 2 year: Textiles Minister lists achievements

Union Textiles Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar listed the achievements of his ministry in the past two years of the NDA government.  “More than Rs 6,500 crore has been spent by the Ministry of Textiles on various schemes, for promotion and development of the textiles sector. Approximately five lakh additional jobs have been created in the past two years in the textiles sector,” Gangwar said during a press conference in New Delhi.

“It is important that handloom weavers get due respect as well as compensation for their work. Our aim is to increase the earning of handloom weavers to 500 rupees per day. A range of initiatives have been taken, keeping this goal in mind,” he said.

“I am very proud to say that an Apparel and Garment Making Centre in every state in the North Eastern Region, leading to enterprise in textile sector, is now a dream turned into reality. The units in Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram have already been inaugurated. In the remaining states, (except in Sikkim) the infrastructure is ready and entrepreneurs have been identified for handing over the units,” the minister said.

“To safeguard interests of domestic cotton growers, a well-planned, largest ever Minimum Support Price operation was carried out by the Cotton Corporation of India in the 2014- 2015 cotton season, in all 11 cotton producing states. This operation was highly successful, with procurement crossing 86 lakh bales up to March 30, 2015; and as I speak to you today, out of this stock of 86 lakh bales, only 60,000 bales is left in our stock, the rest has been sold. Apart from this, in the 2015-2016 season too, we have procured around 9 lakh bales through MSP operations, out of which we have a stock of 3 lakh bales at present,” he said.

The minister said that apparel and handicrafts, each recorded 22% growth and textile exports overall grew by 8% during last two years – compared to the previous two years. “The share of textile exports in total exports from India has gone up from 13% to 15%,” he said.