New Delhi, Wednesday, 06 October 2021: Confederation of Indian Textile Industry’s (CITI) Chairman, Shri T. Rajkumar welcomed the approval of 7 Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM MITRA) Parks by the Union Cabiner and thanked the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi Ji, Chairman of the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) and Hon’ble Union Minister for Textiles and Commerce & Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal Ji. Shri T. Rajkumar said that PM MITRA is another landmark decision to empower the Indian Textile & Apparel (T&A) Industry. The Scheme will result in the creation of world-class infrastructure with plug-and-play facilities to enable the Indian T&A Industry to become globally competitive by address the scale of operation issue. He further said that PM MITRA will attract huge investment in the Indian T&A Industry and is likely to generate 7 lakhs direct and 14 lakhs indirect employment opportunities.

Shri T. Rajkumar stated that following the model of China and Vietnam, the Government will set up seven mega textile parks over the next five years with an outlay of Rs 4,445 crores. The parks will be developed by Special Purpose Vehicle (owned by State Governments and Government of India) in a Public-Private Partnership Mode. Each textile park under PM MITRA will have all the integrated plug and play facilities to facilitate the process from spinning to garmenting under a single roof and thus, will enable the operating units to achieve economies of scale with minimum fragmentation and reduced logistics cost. It will also help the Indian textile entrepreneurs avoid the hurdles and save time required in acquiring land, power, and water connection, creating connectivity and heavy expenses of ETPs, etc. He further pointed out that PM MITRA will leverage 5F Power: Farm to Fibre to Factory to Fashion to Foreign to improve India’s competitiveness in the global textile trade.

Chairman, CITI further pointed out that parks under PM MITRA will be set up at Greenfield and Brownfield sites located in different States for which the following states, such as, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana have expressed their interest. He further pointed out that new sites for PM MITRA will be selected by a Challenge Method based on objective criteria. He also pointed out that for the development of PM MITRA Parks, a support of Rs. 500 crores and Rs. 200 crores will be provided to Greenfield and Brownfield projects respectively. He further said, in addition to the above, the Government will provide Competitiveness Incentives of Rs.300 crore for each park for the early establishment of the manufacturing units.

Shri T. Rajkumar cited that PM MITRA is another welcome move by the Government of India. However, besides developing new textile parks, Government may also work towards digitally mapping the existing clusters to have an insight into the current gaps in the value chain of the products produced and the required infrastructure. It will help in further developing these parks and also drive growth within the existing units and clusters.

CITI Chairman, further stated that the Government has set an ambitious target of increasing the textile business size to US$ 350 bn, including US$ 100 bn exports by 2025-26 and to achieve the above target, the Government has announced several policy reforms like the continuation of RoSCTL for Garments and Made-ups till 31st March 2024, RoDTEP for all the textile products, removal of anti-dumping duty on MMF raw materials, Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for MMF Fabrics, MMF Garments and Technical Textiles, etc.

Shri T Rajkumar stated that while these schemes were focused on increasing our textile exports on the global front, the PM MITRA Scheme will provide a fillip to the Indian Textile Industry which will result in developing cutting-edge technology, world-class industrial infrastructure and boost FDI, and bringing in fresh local investments. Together, these schemes will boost the “Make In India” initiative in the T&A Industry and make our industry truly AatmaNirbhar in all respects by creating new Global Champions from India, Shri T Rajkumar strongly opined.