Govt extends TUFS for another 5 years from Apr 1

New Delhi, Mar 7 (UNI) The Government today said in the Rajya Sabha that since the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) is expiring on March 31, 2007, Ministry of Textiles had requested for its extension to the Office of Prime Minister, Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry.

In a written reply in the House, Minister of State for Textiles E V K S Elangovan said Finance Minister P Chidambaram, in his Budget Speech for 2007-08, has announced that the TUFS will be continued during the 11th Plan and has made a provision of Rs 911 crore for this scheme during 2007-08, On Textils Parks, he said under the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP), 26 projects have been sanctioned which include Andhra Pradesh (4 parks), Gujarat (6), Tamil Nadu (5), Maharashtra (6) Rajasthan (2), Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal (1 each).

Estimated project cost of these 26 parks (common infrastructure/facilities) is Rs 2,433.80 crore of which the Centre support would be Rs 869 crore. So far no proposal for setting up of Textile Park in Orissa has been received.

Regarding modernisation of NTC mills, Mr Elangovan said that as per the Modified Rehabilitation Scheme, National Textiles Corporation (NTC) would modernise 22 mills by itself by generating funds from sale of surplus assets. The modernisation is scheduled to be completed by December 2007, as per the action plan drawn by the Company.

The Government has taken various steps to increase the stake of public sector mills in the domestic textile market which inter alia includes financial sacrifices made by the Government and stakeholders for rehabilitation of large number of sick mills of NTC and the British India Corp. Ltd.

On increasing the capacity of textile manufacturing sector, the Minister said as per the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry's (CITI) vision statement for 2010, the textile industry is planning to invest Rs 1,40,000 crore in textile machinery and other capital expenses in next 5 to 6 years in order to take a leap in annual exports of textiles and garments from 12 billion US dollars to 40 billion dollars.

He said at present total installed capacity of textile machinery industry in India has a potential to manufacture textile machinery worth Rs 3050 crore, whereas the level of production during 2004-05 and 2005-06 was around Rs 1684 crore and Rs 2212 crore respectively. The import of textile machinery during these years was worth Rs 3393 and rs 7100 crore respectively.

The textile engineering industry has projected an investment of around Rs 5000 crore in plant and machinery during 11th Plan Period and consequent increase in production to the level of Rs 10,000 crore by 2012, the Minister informed.

UNI