Union Budget received thumbs-up from different Textile and Apparel Sectors. Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley has announced some proposals for Textile and Apparel Sector in Union Budget 2014. He has offered some relief to promote the exports of readymade garments.
Proposals in favor of Textile and Apparel Sector :
Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley proposed some proposals in favor of Indian Apparel and Textile Sector. The Union Budget gave the following gifts to the Textile and Apparel Sectors.
- To encourage the export of readymade garments in India, Finance Minister proposed to increase the duty free entitlement for import of trimmings, embellishments and other specified items from 3% to 5% of the value of their exports.
- There will be formation of additional six textile zones in India which will give a major push in promotion of handloom products.
- Finance Minister proposed to encourage the SME(Small and Medium Enterprises) Sector which is the backbone of domestic apparel industries. According to the budget, proper focus would be made on infrastructure, development, and overall growth of the textile industries.
- Proposed a trade facilitation center and craft museum with an outlay of Rs. 50 crore to develop and promote the handloom products.
- A “Hastakala Academy”, outlay of Rs. 30 crore is also proposed in Union Budget for the preservation, documentation of handloom products in handicraft sector in PPP mode in Delhi.
Issue in Union Budget:
At one point, the textile and garment sector trade bodies have raised their objection on imposition of excise duty on Garments against the two major garments associations – CMAI and South Indian Garment Association. These two major garments associations had been fighting hard and sent their pre-budget representations to Finance Minister, Textile Minister and Union Home Minister earlier of the budget. South Indian Garment Association also met Union Home Minister, Textile Minister and Minister of commerce and handed over a memorandum detailing the loss in Garment Sector after imposition of the Excise duty. To know more about this, Click Here.
Budget Review:
The Textile Minister, Mr. Santosh Kumar Gangwar welcomed to the budget proposal for Textile and Apparel Sector and said, “this is a forward looking budget for all including the textile industry. ” He also hailed on the proposal for setting up the additional mega textile clusters in Varanasi, Bareilly, Lucknow, Surat, Kuttch, Bhagalpur, Mysore and in Tamil Nadu with a sum of Rs. 200 crore.
The Secretary of South Indian Garments Association (SIGA), Mr. Anurag Singhla also hailed the budget proposals of Finance Minister, Mr. Jaitley and thanked to him for making the proposals in the favor of Textile and Apparel Sector. President of the Clothing Manufactures Association of India (CMAI), Mr. Rahul Mehta, congratulated the Finance Minister for his balanced, growth-oriented, and manufacturing friendly budget presented in the Union Budget 2014.
President of Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA), Mr. A Sakthivel also thanked the Finance Minister for all the proposals for textile and garment sector. He also welcomed to the decision of setting of the additional six textile clusters in various places in our country. However Mr. Sakhivel was expecting the decision of 3% interest subvention on packing credit, which expired on March 31st. But nothing was mentioned regarding this matter in the Union Budget 2014. He is expecting that Mr. Jaitley will make a separate announcement for this in the near future.
