Bihar govt to revive sick textile units

State plans to establish two textile parks

The Government of Bihar has appointed IL&FS to work out a framework for the revival of three sick state textile units that have been lying closed for about a decade. IL&FS is one of India's leading infrastructure development and finance companies.

The three mills are Bhagalpur Cooperative Spinning Mills (Bhagalpur), Pandaul Cooperative Spinning Mills (Madhubani) and Siwan Cooperative Spinning Mills (Siwan). Each of them has a capacity of 25,000 spindles and was manufacturing cotton and blended yarns before shutting down.

"The purpose is to revive them if possible or sell them to private players. IL&FS will submit a report after evaluating the assets of these mills, based on which the state cabinet will take a decision," said Sunil Choudhary, who is looking after the initiative on behalf of the government.

The Nitish Kumar-led government in the state seems to be keen on reviving sick and closed industrial units in Bihar. Earlier this month, the state government offered 7 of the 15 sick sugar mills of the Bihar Sugar Corporation Ltd on long-term lease to the private sector. This followed a recommendation made by SBI Capital Markets, which did a study on reviving these mills.

The state government is also facilitating the establishment of two textile parks in the state. The first one, known as Vikramshila Textile Park, is being set at a cost of Rs 120 crore and Angh Pradesh Handloom Park, the second one will be set up at a cost of Rs 25 crore. "These two parks together are expected to attract investments of over Rs 600 crore," he said.

The proposed textile parks at Bhagalpur is expected to give a thrust to the state's textile industry. The parks would be truly integrated in nature and have all the major segments of the textile industry, including weaving, spinning, processing, embroidering and apparel manufacturing units, he added.