Textile mills seek bail-out package, duty cut on man-made fibres

The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has sought the intervention of the Prime Minister to hasten the formulation of a stimulus package to save the textile mills.

It also wanted the Government to slash the duties on man-made fibre to provide the domestic synthetic mills a level playing field with countries such as China.

Speaking to newspersons after being elected as the new SIMA Chairman here today, Mr S. Dinakaran, Joint Managing Director of Sambandam Spinning Mills Ltd, Salem, said the industry has been battling a plethora of problems such as rising raw material cost, power and labour shortage, surginginterest rates and lopsided Government policies.

The spinning mill sector alone had lost over Rs 15,000 crore infive months.

Recalling the requests made by SIMA earlier to the Prime Minister, various ministries and the RBI, he reiterated the demand for a two-year moratorium on repayment of all loans and interest payments, including those mills that had gone for restructuring or had availed themselves of similar facilities during global recession in 2008 and 2009, apart from conversion of eroded working capital into long term loans, reduction in margin money etc.

Fibre policy

Mr Dinakaran sought the intervention of the Prime Minister regarding a bailout package for the textile industry to ‘protect over Rs 2 lakh crore investments' made under the TUF scheme and to save the livelihood of scores of workers employed by the industry. The new SIMA Chairman also wanted early implementation of the National Fibre Policy.

Duty cuts

Referring tomanmade fibre, he wanted the 5 per cent import duty and 4 per cent special additional duty be removed and the Central excise duty to be cut to 4 per cent from 10 per cent to make the clothes affordable and provide a level playing field to the domestic synthetic mills with countries such as China. Duty drawback

He urged the duty drawback committee to suggest a ‘modular structure duty drawback scheme' to encourage value creation and to deny competing countries any advantage of sourcing of raw materials/intermediary textile products at lower prices.

The hank yarn obligation should be scrapped and reeling parks should be developed in all major handloom centres to convert cone yarn into hank yarn.

Mr Dinakaran requested the Chief Ministers of the Southern states to reduce the VAT on cone to 2 per cent till GST was implemented and address the southern load despatch centre corridor problem to enable the industries take advantage of the open access system.

Mr T. Rajkumar, Managing Director of Sri Mahasakthi Mills Ltd, was elected as the Deputy Chairman and Mr M. Senthil Kumar, Managing Dirctor of BKS Textiles P. Ltd, Palladam, as the Vice-Chairman, respectively, of SIMA for 2011-12.

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