Modi to lay stone for 'Green Field Textile Park' tomorrow

Ahmedabad, Jan 31 (UNI) Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi will be laying the foundation stone for India's first private sector textile park, 'Green Field Textile Park', near here tomorrow.

The park will be set up by Pradip Overseas Ltd and ''This will be the world's biggest integrated textile park with an installed capacity to produce five lakh metres of grey cloth and where all activities relating to spinning, weaving, processing, stitching, packaging&dispatching would be all under one roof,'' J S Negi, director and technical advisor of POL here said today.

Mr Negi said ''Our objective is to focus largely on exports and so we would like to follow strictly standards set by foreign companies, especially the US with regard to 'social audit compliance.'' In the first phase the POL, which is a star trading house, will invest Rs 360 crore out of the total planned investment of Rs 1,200 crore, Mr Negi said. The first phase is likely to be completed within a year.

The park which is coming on an 115 hectares on the Bavla-Bagodara highway would be the first privately owned park of this size. It would also be a 'green park' in true sense as 40 per cent of the land would be devoted to greenery, Mr Negi said.

''We would like the project to be 100 per cent EOU. However, 75 to 80 per cent would be exported, he said. Already we have overseas order in hand worth Rs 200 crore, he added.

The park with a total investment of Rs 1,200 crore is expected to be completed in five years time and would be on a 400 hectares of land. The park on completion would provide employment opportunities to 20,000 skilled and unskilled workers apart from adding Rs 1,500 crore in foreign exchange to the state exchequer, Mr Negi said.

Since most of our product would go to the US, which is our focus area, it is therefore mandatory for us to get the Social Audit Compliance of the factory as per that country's needs and business demands. This park is being developed keeping those standards in mind, Mr Negi said.

POL total turnover for first nine months of the current FY was over Rs 280 crore and is expecting over Rs 400 crore during the current fiscal with exports touching Rs 300 crore, he said.

UNI