Hit hard by the deadly pandemic Covid-19, the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has sought measures, including removal of anti-dumping duties and basis customs duties levied on the imports of raw material such as dyes & chemicals, intermediaries, spares and accessories.
The industry body has also sought the exemption for cotton yarn and fabrics under RoSCTL, IES & MEIS benefits with immediate effect to prevent job losses of lakhs of people in the handloom, powerloom and spinning sectors.
The demands also include extending soft loan equivalent to government dues pending in the books of individual textile units that could be adjusted soon as the government clears the dues (TUF subsidy, RoSCTL, MEIS, GST refund), enhancing IES benefit for all textiles and clothing exports to 5% and reducing the bank interest rate by 3%, CITI said in a press release here.
The relief package is urgently required to ensure the survival of the textile and clothing industry that employs over 105 million people and also earn around $40 billion forex, apart from contributing substantial revenue in terms of GST and other taxes.
T Rajkumar, chairman, CITI, observed that several countries across the world have extended liberal packages to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis. For instance, Germany has announced a financial package of half trillion euros for companies impacted by the crisis to boost their liquidity. Under this scheme, any German company hit during this crisis can borrow as much as necessary by them for a longer duration with zero interest rate till such time they completely recover; they do not have to pay back.
According to him, the demand for the textile products and also the domestic sales have come down to a grinding halt due to the panic situation created by the outbreak of COVID-19 which was first reported in China and which later got spread to EU and the US as well, which are the final destinations for the textile products manufactured in India.
CITI chairman further said that understanding the gravity of the pandemic and with a view to control the situation at an early stage, the Union government has issued directions to close all the malls and retail outlets so that people do not further get infected and this decision of the government has resulted in substantial reduction in the sales of the domestic textiles and clothing, he said.
CITI chairman said that he has requested the prime minister to immediately announce a relief package to mitigate the crisis being faced by the highly-capital and labour-intensive textile industry which runs on wafer-thin margin.
Source: financialexpress.com