On 20 March 2015, the textile industry stalwarts O P Lohia, Chairman and Managing Director of Indo Rama Synthetics (India) Ltd. and Madhu Sudhan Bhageria – Vice Chairman & Managing Director of Filatex India Ltd. met Santosh Kumar Gangwar, minister of state (Independent Charge) for Textiles and Sanjay Kumar Panda, Secretary – Textiles at Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi. They were also accompanied by a delegation from textile industry to apprise the minister of the current as well as post budget scenario of the textile industry.

The minister was apprised that while textile Industry was expecting a strong focus from the Government, however, there was no mention of it and nothing was done in the Budget to improve the health of the textile sector.

The man-made industry was expecting reduction of excise duty from 12.36 per cent to 6 per cent but it was increased to 12.50 per cent and the allocation of TUFF was also not there as per recommendation given by all Textile Industry Associations including FICCI, CITI, etc.

Lohia requested the minister to ensure that textile Industry is kept in the lowest slab in GST, which is expected to be in place by next year as it being the second largest employment provider in India.

In order to support the ‘Make In India’ slogan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lohia emphasized that the need of the hour is to focus on textile industry to boost production capabilities. Presently, man-made Fibre requires special attention in textile sector as major growth, now in this sector, can come only from MMF. He stressed that if we do not focus now, other countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan will grow faster than India in this area.

Lohia also expressed concern over the diminishing quantum of exports of textile goods for the last few months and looking at this dismal situation in textile exports, he suggests that we should now focus on export of textile apparel and garments so that the entire value chain in the Textile Industry is benefited.

The minister assured the delegation to look into all these matters and to bring growth in the textile sector so that it can achieve its desired position both in domestic and export market.