During the last seven years, the power loom sector has been facing numerous challenges on account of sluggish global and domestic market conditions. Though the capacity has increased by 12% during the last seven years, the fabric production has increased only by 2.4%. The GST Plus agreement entered by Pakistan with EU during 2013-14 had huge impact on the power loom fabric exports from India due to 9.6% duty advantage given for Pakistan.
In addition, the high production cost, labour shortage, transport cost, 5% State VAT, mass closure of dyeing units, exorbitant cost of modern technology machines, high cost of manmade fibre, hank yarn obligation, Handloom Reservation Act, etc., continue to be major challenges faced by the power loom sector. Though the Central Government has already extended numerous schemes including TUF subsidy, subsidy for conversion of non-automatic looms, semi-automatic looms, yarn bank facility, etc., the power loom sector continuous to struggle.
Against this background, the power loom sector and The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) have been making demands to the Central Government to announce a special scheme for the power loom sector. Now the unique scheme has been announced through Power Tex India.
Through a press release M. Senthilkumar, Chairman, SIMA and also the former Chairman of PDEXCIL who has been making concerted efforts for strengthening power loom sector’s competitiveness during the last three decades, has thanked the Union Textile Minister, Smriti Zubin Irani for considering most of the proposals of the power loom sector and SIMA and launching Power Tex India Scheme at Bhiwandi, Maharashtra and also in all power loom centres across the Nation including Erode through Video Conference.
He said that the components of the Power Tex India Scheme include In-situ Upgradation of plain power looms, group work shed scheme, yarn bank scheme, common facility centre, Pradhan Manthri Credit Scheme for power loom weavers, Solar Energy Scheme for Power loom, Facilitation, IT, awareness, market development and publicity / power loom scheme, Tex Venture Capital Fund and Grant-in-Aid and modernization and Upgradation of powerloom service centre. He has added that other schemes for power looms are Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, Modified Comprehensive Power loom Cluster Development Scheme, Universal Insurance Coverage Scheme and Integrated Skill Development Scheme.
Senthilkumar immediately after attending the launch function at Erode, which was inaugurated by Pushpa Subrahmanyam, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Textiles has stated that the Scheme would greatly benefit the power loom sector to improve its competitiveness in the global market and also enable the sector to supply quality fabrics at a competitive rate to the garmenting and made-up sector. He has stated that the Central Government has been continuously announcing special schemes for garment exports, made-ups exports and now for the power loom sector. He has highly appreciated the solar power plant scheme for power looms by giving 50 to 90% subsidy with the lower cap for the power looms connected to the grid and higher benefit for the power looms that go off the grid. He has stated that this would give a great relief to the State governments especially Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu that account over 75% of the power looms in the country to reduce their power subsidy commitment and also enable the power loom sector to be self-reliant.