Coimbatore: Welcoming the announcement of the Government's Interim Budget 2019-20, P Nataraj, the Chairman of The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has opined, "The scheme of Rs.6,000 per year to be granted for the farmers with two hectares of land, under Prathan Mandri Kisan Samman Nidhi Programme effective from December 1, 2018 would largely benefit millions of cotton farmers."
Coimbatore: Welcoming the announcement of the Government's Interim Budget 2019-20, P Nataraj, the Chairman of The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has opined, "The scheme of Rs.6,000 per year to be granted for the farmers with two hectares of land, under Prathan Mandri Kisan Samman Nidhi Programme effective from December 1, 2018 would largely benefit millions of cotton farmers."
In the release, P Nataraj also lauded the announcement of the Pension Scheme for the workers in the unorganized sector, thus enabling such workers to receive Rs.3000 per month as pension, after attaining the age of 60. He stated that since the textile industry is predominantly an unorganized sector, the scheme would largely benefit the weavers of handlooms and powerlooms, and also the workers of several other small, micro units from other segments of the industry.
The SIMA Chairman also welcomed the decision of doubling the income tax exemption limit from Rs.2.5 lakhs per annum to Rs.5 lakhs per annum, apart from enhancing the standard deduction limit from Rs.40,000 to Rs.50,000.
P Nataraj has stated that the substantial reduction in the budget allocation for RoSL and Technology Upgradation Fund (A-TUFS) benefits would have serious impact on the textile industry. The RoSL budget allocation has been reduced to Rs.1000 crores from last year’s budget allocation of Rs.2164 crores, as against the revised estimate of Rs.3664 crores for the same year. He also noted, "The A-TUFS allocation has been reduced to Rs.700 crores from the previous year’s budget allocation of Rs.2300 crores. The backlog in the A-TUFS would be over Rs.2000 crores since over 3000 projects that were implemented are yet to receive the subsidy, due to the complicated guidelines of A-TUFS."
P Nataraj added that the Government had earlier allocated Rs.17,822 crores including Rs.5151 crores for A-TUFS for the 13th five-year plan, in order to clear the long pending committed liability under M-TUFS, R-TUFS and also RR-TUFS. He hoped that the Government would allocate necessary funds soon, since the procedural issues are sorted out.
He also appealed to the Centre to expedite the announcement of an increased RoSL rate and also include cotton yarn export under MEIS and IES and RoSL benefits to fully utilize the idle production capacity and enhance forex earnings, apart from providing increased jobs.