Committee to be set up to boost textile exports

With the aim of increasing exports from the textile industry to $40 billion by 2010, the government has set up a sub-committee within the group of ministers that is expected to hold its first meeting within a month to eliminate hurdles and make labour laws more flexible.

"The group comprises the commerce minister, textile minister, labour minister, chief ministers of states and trade unions. It would look at the proposal of increasing the hours in a shift from nine to 12 hours and explore the option of increasing the working hours in a week to 60 hours from 48 hours," Textiles Minister Shankersinh Vaghela told reporters here on Wednesday.

He added that it would also consider the proposal of allowing textile units to hire workers on contract for short periods. Garment exporters have been demanding flexible labour laws due to the seasonal nature of their business and had even met the Left parties on this issue.

The textiles minister said that textile exports are expected to touch $19.6 billion this fiscal, up from $17 billion in 2005-06 and $13.56 in 2004-05.

He said the fortunes of the industry had been turned around in the past few years, with current investment levels at Rs.30,032 crore in 2005-06, compared with Rs.14,850 crore in the previous fiscal.

"The textile sector needs an investment of Rs.1,40,000 crore between 2005 and 2010 and we are confident that this target will be achieved," Vaghela said.

He added that a large chunk of this investment would flow through the scheme for integrated textile parks, which was launched in August last year by merging apparel parks for export schemes and textile infrastructure development schemes.

Vaghela said the scheme for Integrated Textile Parks had proposed to build 25 integrated textile parks in 18 months that would facilitate investments of Rs 18,500 crore and create five lakh jobs.

"So far, nine such parks have been sanctioned by the textile ministry and since there is a huge demand, the number of parks sanctioned can be increased," he said.

Each such park would have a minimum investment of Rs 100 crore and is expected to create 15,000 jobs, he said. The textile minister expects the industry to create 12 million jobs by 2010.

He said a technology mission on jute would be launched next year at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore. The ministry is also planning to launch technology missions on silk and wool at a cost of 2,000 crore and 90 crore respectively.