Indian state of Tamil Nadu has announced various schemes to benefit the textile sector. New industrial parks will be set up by State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) in Vellore, Kallakurichi and Coimbatore including a park in Virudhunagar under the PM MITRA mega textile park scheme.
The M K Stalin government has said that a new Textile Policy would be released with a focus on holistic development of the entire value chain, latest design development and textile machinery manufacturing.
The state will also get 10 mini handloom parks with a total outlay of ₹20 crore to upgrade the standard of handloom products by using latest technologies and creating market linkages.
Tamil Nadu has announced that it aims to double the installed power generation capacity in the state by 2030 and increase the share of green energy to 50 per cent. Free power supply for power loom sectors has been increased from 750 units to 1,000 units.
The government will also scale up skill training infrastructure, where factories have been proposed to be used as Skill Development Centres. Industries will be incentivised to provide on-the-job-training to youth in factories. An amount of ₹25 crore has been allocated for this ‘Factory Skill Schools’ programme in Budget 2023-24.
A state-of-the-art Skill Development Centre will be established at an estimated cost of ₹80 crore, in SIPCOT Industrial Park in Krishnagiri district, which is emerging as the third largest industrial cluster in the state. A Start-up Mission will also be established to address the difficulties faced by women entrepreneurs in accessing adequate, timely credit and marketing of products.
Lauding the announcements, Ravi Sam, chairman, The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), appreciated the government for enhancing the free power supply to the power loom sector. He said that this announcement would strengthen the competitiveness of the power loom sector in Tamil Nadu, benefitting 1.64 lakh power loom weavers who account for around 25 per cent of the woven fabrics production in the country and play a major role in exports.
Sam has also welcomed the announcement of new industrial parks in the clusters of Virudhunagar, Vellore, Kallakurichi, and Coimbatore at an estimated cost of ₹410 crore for providing employment opportunities to nearly 22,000 people.
“The recent announcement by the Indian government, allocating a Park to Tamil Nadu (at a cost of ₹1,800 crore in Virudhunagar district and for this purpose 1,052 acres of land would be acquired and completed by SIPCOT) through the PM MITRA mega textile park scheme and the infrastructure support extended by the government of Tamil Nadu through this budget, would increase the scale of operation and value-addition,” said Sam.
