Textile machinery sector flays government apathy

The textile engineering industry (TEI) has expressed its disappointment on the government's lackadaisical approach towards the sector. The machinery manufacturers said unless sufficient investment was pumped in the segment, the target set by the textile industry might not be achieved.

According to an estimate made by Crisil along with the government, spinning and processing segment will gulp Rs 97,000 crore of the total projected investment in the new Five-Year Plan ending 2012.

This is exactly half of the total investment target of Rs 1,94,000, meant for catapulting the entire textile sector size to the tune of $110 billion. At present, the size of the textile sector is over $45 billion.

"The textile engineering industry is determined to obtain a lion's share of this investment," said Rajnikant Bachkaniwala, chairman, Textile Machinery Manufacturers' Association of India. "We expect an investment of Rs 20,000 crore a year in the next five years," he added.

However, the manufacturers are not certain about the investment the machinery industry will be able to attract. "We may expect 25-30 per cent of the sum to come in our way," said Ketan Sanghvi, president, Indian Textile Accessories & Machinery Manufacturers' Association.

The Federation of Indian Textile Engineering Industry has been demanding to shift textile machinery industry to the textile ministry from the ministry of heavy Industries. But no concrete response has so far come from the government.

"Since machinery is a major input for the textile industry, we have requested the government for the shift in order to have proper co-ordination between the requirements of the textile industry and the investments in the machinery sector," said Bachkaniwala.

Indian textile engineering industry is a Rs 2,500-crore sector. In 2005-06, TEI had a production of around Rs 2,212 crore, which was an increase of 31 per cent over the previous year.

Spinning machinery is the core part of TEI. However, as far as the weaving and processing sector goes, machinery is yet at nascent stage in the country and therefore giving way to imports. On an average, the country is importing textile machinery and accessories over Rs 7,000 crore in the past few years.

In the last financial year, the exports of the textile engineering industry marginally increased to Rs 482 crore from Rs 457 crore in the previous year. "With the overall growth of the industry, the exports are likely to improve in the coming years," said Bachkaniwala.