Attempting to bolster the Indian textile industry and higher exports, the upcoming 2025 Budget is expected to increase the allotted budgetary funds for the textiles ministry in New Delhi, according to a report. The Ministry of Textiles is likely to receive a 15 per cent increase in its allocation, reaching an estimated US $ 587 million.
The budgetary hike includes a substantial 33 per cent rise in funding for the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for textiles, aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and driving exports.
In the current fiscal year (2024-25), the Ministry of Textiles received an allocation of US $ 510 million. The PLI scheme for technical textiles and man-made fibre (MMF) apparel and products currently receives US $ 5.2 million, which is expected to increase to US $ 6.93 million in the upcoming budget.
The Government approved the PLI scheme for textiles in 2021 with a total outlay of US $ 1.23 billion over five years. This initiative aims to promote the production of MMF apparel, MMF fabrics, and technical textiles within India, enabling the industry to achieve greater scale and competitiveness.
India has set ambitious goals for the textiles sector, aiming to achieve US $ 600 billion in textile exports by 2047 and expand the domestic market to US $ 1.8 trillion from the current US $ 110 billion. In the first nine months of the current fiscal year (April-December 2024), India’s textile exports reached US $ 26.6 billion.
However, the Indian textiles industry currently relies heavily on imports for crucial machinery, including auto-corners, winders, and fancy doublers for spinning and knitting machines. To address this dependence, the government is considering a scheme to provide an interest subsidy of 7 per cent for at least 10 years to encourage domestic manufacturing of textile machinery.
Some of the critical machinery currently imported includes spun lace, spun bond, mask, special fibres braiding needle punch multi-axial looms, net knitting machines for technical textiles, and synthetic dyeing machines.
