Textile Ministry to take up plan to link MNREGA with textiles with PM.

NEW DELHI: The Textiles Ministry will soon take up with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a proposal to link NREGA with the sector to train about 15 lakh workers in the sector in the next three years.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), guarantees 100-day employment for rural poor people and was launched in 2006.

Textiles Minister K Sambasiva Rao said the proposal is for a MNREGA type of employment in the textile sectors to minimise the problems of skilled labourers. "I will be talking to the Prime Minister about the proposal," he said after releasing a report.

The report titled 'Cost Benchmarking Study-India vis-a vis Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, China, Pakistan and Turkey' was commissioned by Zurich-based consulting firm GHERZI and Cotton Textiles Export promotion Council of India (Texprocil). "We want to train 15 lakh people in textiles sector in the next three years," Rao said.

The principle aim of MNERGA is to provide employment to people who do not get it in the off season and by linking the scheme to textiles sector these people will also be trained, he added.

"Of the total Rs 40,000 crore allocated for MNREGA, I want at least Rs 25,000 crore should be diverted for skill training for various sectors," Rao said.

"Recently, I have also written a letter to Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh suggesting linking the MNREGA scheme with skill development," he said.

The government has already allocated Rs 1,900 crore for skill development in the sector and some funds from the scheme will help to provide training to people along with paying them wages, he said.

Further, Rao said, the ministry is planning to increase the interest subsidy to 6 per cent from the existing 5 per cent under Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) for the powerloom sector. "We are now proposing to increase the interest subsidy for powerloom to six per cent," Rao said.

Under TUFS, the government subsidises five per cent of interest payments on loans sanctioned. On Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Anup K Pujari said the Textiles Ministry has asked the Commerce Ministry to allow import of second-hand capital goods under the scheme.

Under the EPCG scheme, a domestic manufacturer can import capital goods at 3 per cent customs duty, irrespective of the applicable duty rate.
The GHERZI - Texprocil report cautioned that India has a long way to go in catching up with China, which has more than 35 per cent share in global textiles trade as on 2011.

In absolute terms, while China had clocked an export figure of USD 248 billion in 2011, India remains a distant second with exports of USD 29.4 billion from the sector.

Further, the study said, the domestic cotton textiles industry has a potential to grow from its present level of about USD 60 billion to USD 140 billion by 2020 besides generating 2 million additional direct jobs.

It identified three critical areas to realise that potential -- adequate supply of raw-material at competitive prices, particularly cotton, stable enabling environment such as a predictable policy regime and physical infrastructure which ensures quick movement of goods and services across the country.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com