In the last two years, 31,901 workers lost their jobs with the closure of 80 cotton/man-made fibre textile mills across the country.

All the closed mills were not in the small-scale sector, the Minister of Textiles, Mr Anand Sharma, told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply on Wednesday.

The Minister assured the House that the Government was making necessary amendments in the Textile Workers Rehabilitation Fund Scheme to expedite benefits to workers.

Under the scheme, affected workers are to be provided interim relief as a result of permanent closure or any particular portion or the entire textile unit in the private sector till they settle in another job.

Among the 80 closed mills, the highest were in Maharashtra, where 20 mills shut shop. Of these five are in Mumbai – Bombay Dyeing & Manufacturing Company Ltd, Morarjee Goculdas Spinning & Weaving, New Great Eastern Spinning & Weaving, Ruby Mills and Prakash Cotton.

Of the 12 closures in Tamil Nadu, five were in Coimbatore. These are Dharmaveera Textiles, Sri Ramakrishna Mills, Kothari Ind, Maruthi Textiles, Central Prison Spinning & Weaving.

In Gujarat, of the 10 mills that closed down, five were in Ahmedabad and include Mafatlal Industries, Maneklal Harilal, Neptune Spin-Fab, Rajnagar Spinnning & Weaving and Asoka Cotyson (a division of Arvind Mills).

Seven mills each shut shop in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, according to the Textile Ministry.

As on March 31, 2012, there were 1,957 cotton/man-made textiles mills, employing 8.58 lakh workers, Mr Sharma said.

> aditi.n@thehindu.co.in

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