India’s textile industry is one of the largest in the world — holding 4 per cent of the global market share — contributes 2 per cent to the country’s GDP, and employs over 45 million people directly (making it the second largest employer in the country). The industry’s production is projected to touch $250 billion by 2030.

The textile industry has received much attention over the past five years, with numerous Central Government initiatives aimed at enhancing India’s role as a global textile producer — basis the 5F vision of ‘Farm to Fibre to Factory to Fashion to Foreign’. Through initiatives like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for textiles, Kasturi Cotton Bharat programme, National Technical Textiles Mission, SAMARTH, and PM Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM MITRA) Parks Scheme, the textile industry has got a substantial facelift.

Drawing from India’s ambitious endeavours to achieve $100 billion in exports by 2030, Maharashtra has emerged as a potent contender in driving the country’s textile industry. Our contribution to the national textile industry is significant — accounting for 10.4 per cent of the total textile and apparel production and employing over 10 per cent of the total employment in India.

Expediting growth

The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) has expedited the growth of the State’s textile industry with the development of 11 exclusive textile parks, strategically located in areas like Amravati, Thane, Solapur, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, and Nandurbar (as of 2020).

Owing to the State’s geographical position — with vast swathes of fertile soil under cotton (leading the national cotton acreage with 39.41 lakh ha) and an extensive coastline (a total of 50 ports) — we are preparing to establish a garment trading hub in Mumbai, giving it a competitive edge alongside China’s Guangzhou and Turkey’s Istanbul.

A robust focus on policies and interventions remains fundamental in strengthening our infrastructural capacities to facilitate Maharashtra’s growth as a global textile hub. In recent times, the efforts in revolutionising the textile industry paved the way to the State becoming one of the seven recipients of the PM MITRA Park Scheme — to be established in Amravati — which is projected to attract ₹10,000 crore and create direct and indirect employment opportunities for nearly 3 lakh people.

The PM MITRA Park, which would be developed by MIDC and funded by the Central Government, aims to ease business operations for investors with the entire infrastructure to be established under the State government.

The State has further committed to developing 18 mini textile parks — aiming to attract ₹1,800 crore as investment and providing employment opportunities to 36,000 individuals.

Also, the recently released Integrated and Sustainable Textile Policy 2023-2028 manifests our stringent efforts in fostering robust conditions to attract investments, strengthen economic growth, and create significant/massive employment opportunities within the State. The policy aims to strengthen the State’s textile value chain via technological upgradation and envisages to attract ₹25,000 crore in investment, increase cotton production by 80 per cent and create over 5 lakh job opportunities in the next five years.

Further, the development of six technical textile parks, enhancement of research and development to implement sustainable innovations, with additional emphasis on utilising information technology to promote ease of doing business, and augment skill development to ensure adequate skilled manpower in the industry, demonstrates our commitment to completely transform the State’s textile sector.

The writer is Minister of Textiles, Government of Maharashtra

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