The predominantly cotton based Indian textiles and clothing industry that provides employment to around 110 million people accounts for 12% industrial production, 8 % of exports and around Rs. 40,000 crores GST revenue. The industry has been growing with CAGR of around 6%, despite numerous challenges, due to the advantage of home-grown cotton and timely policy interventions by the Government. In order to achieve 350 billion USD textile business size, from the current level of 162 billion USD by 2030, the country would need around 20 billion kgs of raw materials as against the existing production of around 5.5 billion kgs of cotton fibres and around 4 billion kgs of MMF fibres and filament yarns. The NDA Government led by the Hon’ble Prime Minister having realized the urgent need for addressing the raw material structural issues to achieve the global competitiveness and double-digit growth rate in the textile industry, has been taking numerous path breaking policy initiatives since the last decade.
In a Press Release issued, the re-elected Chairman of SIMA and newly elected Chairman of SIMA CD & RA, Dr.S.K.Sundararaman, has appealed to the Hon’ble Prime Minister to announce Technology Mission on Cotton, address the MMF and textile processing job work inverted duty structure and also issues relating to MMF Quality Control Orders on MMF value chain. He appreciated the NDA Government for always giving topmost priority for the textile industry by announcing numerous policies including:
• Exemption of 11% import duty on ELS cotton
• FTAs with UAE, Mauritius and Australia, permitting duty free import of 3 lakh bales of ELS cotton
• Allocation of Rs.17,822 crores for TUF Scheme
• Launching of National Skill Development Corporation and implementation of PMKVY under skill development schemes
• SAMARTH skill development scheme exclusively for textile industry
• Rs.6,006 crores special package for the garment industry
• Refund or embedded taxes and levies through a unique RoTDEP Scheme
• Bringing entire cotton textile value chain under the uniform 5% GST (including handlooms, powerlooms), thus curbing evasion, enabling enhanced collection of GST revenue from Rs.3600 crores to around Rs.35000 crores and consequently reducing the clothing cost of the common man
• 85% of the textile manufacturers and traders covered under MSME sector, due to new eligibility criteria effective from 1st July 2020, by increasing asset value upto Rs.100 crores and also covering trade upto Rs.250 crores under MSME categories.
• MSME classification enabled the mills to avail the COVID package extended to tide over the financial crisis, which included ECLGS, thereby preventing the units being declared as NPAs and stabilizing the operations of the units which otherwise would have been closed.
• PM MITRA Park, a mega industrial park scheme for textile industry with plug and play facilities. Seven such parks are already under progress.
• PLI Scheme to encourage scale of operation giving thrust for MMF and technical textiles.
• NTTM Scheme for technical textiles with an outlay of Rs.1480 crores
• Removal of anti-dumping duty on PTA, MEG and all other manmade fibres and filaments.
Dr.Sundararaman stated that as a prelude to the announcement of TMC 2.0, the Government has already announced special packages from the last cotton season to encourage indigenous seed technology for high density planting and ELS cotton and also improving agronomy practices. He added that the Phase I project had proved to be a success with an increase in productivity to the tune of 30 to 60% and Phase II project was under progress.
SIMA Chairman informed that for the first time in the history, a brand had been created for Indian cotton. He further informed that the Government had launched “Kasturi Cotton Bharat” and was also taking efforts to promote the same. He also informed that to make India as the global hub for textile business, the Government had launched Bharat Tex, the global textile Expo (an annual event) during 2023 which attracted over 3500 overseas buyers, 4500 exhibitors and the next event had been scheduled during February 14 to 17, 2024. SIMA Chairman stated that these policy initiatives would largely benefit the textiles and clothing industry to fuel its growth, both in exports and domestic markets.
Dr.Sundararaman thanked the Hon’ble Union Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman for facilitating an industry interaction meeting with the senior officials of all key Ministries and Banks in Coimbatore on 11th September 2024 for the first time, enabling the MSMEs in the Region to vent out their grievances and the officials had promised to address the issues in a time bound manner. He thanked the Hon’ble Minister for slotting time to submit Memorandum and for having detailed discussions on various policy initiatives to enhance the global competitiveness of the Indian textiles and clothing sector, especially the import duty exemption of all varieties of cotton during April to October, off-season, to have a win-win strategy both for the farmers and the industry and prevent the price speculation by the trade by adopting import parity pricing.
Dr Sundararaman added that the Hon’ble Minister had also assured to resolve the issues relating to the MMF value chain inverted duty structure under GST, though the same was addressed with effect from 1.01.2022, the same was withdrawn due to the agitations by the downstream sectors especially MMF fabric segment in certain clusters.
Earlier at the 65th Annual General Meeting of The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), held at SIMA premises, Coimbatore, on 17th September 2024, Dr.S.K.Sundararaman, Managing Director, Shiva Texyarn Limited, Coimbatore has been unanimously re-elected as the Chairman for the year 2024-25. He holds an MBBS Degree and Masters in Business Management from Cambridge University, U.K. Dr Sundararaman is a well-known personality in the field of Technical Textiles in India and also in the field of Technical Education. He is the Managing Trustee of the Firebird Institute of Research & Management. He was the past Chairman of CII, Coimbatore, Educational Convenor CII, Tamil Nadu and past Chairman of Indian Technical Textile Association. He has been a member in various business forums at the national level.
Durai Palanisamy, Executive Director, Pallava Textiles P Limited, Erode, has been unanimously re-elected as the Deputy Chairman for the year 2024-25. He holds MBA in International Business from Southern New Hampshire University and Bachelor of Technology in Textile Technology from PSG College of Technology. He is the Vice-President of CII, Erode Zone. He is also in the Committee of Administration of Manmade and Technical Textiles Export Promotion Council (MATEXIL).
S.Krishnakumar, Managing Director, Sulochana Cotton SPG Mills P Ltd., Tiruppur, has been unanimously re-elected as the Vice-Chairman for the year 2023-24. He holds B.A. Psychology from P.S.G. Arts College Coimbatore and entered the business in the late 80’s. He is involved in various CSR activities, helping the society and particularly, his organization has planted 1.5 million trees in Tirupur including 30,000 trees within his mill premises.
Later at the 49th Annual General Meeting of SIMA Cotton Development & Research Association (SIMA CD & RA), on the same day, Dr.S.K.Sundararaman, Mr.Durai Palanisamy and Mr.S.Krishnakumar were elected as the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively.
