Few of the leading Indian apparel export houses are planning to invest in Madhya Pradesh! During the recent ‘Magnificent MP’ Madhya Pradesh Investor’s Summit 2019, these apparel exporters held meetings with State Chief Minister Kamal Nath and senior officials. Consequently, the state now expects an investment of Rs. 6,000 crore in its textile and apparel industry.
Planning to invest around Rs. 30 to Rs. 50 crore in the first phase, Gaurav Uppal of Richa Global Exports, Gurgaon told Apparel Resources, “Our meeting was very interesting and after festivals, we are going to meet again. As of now, we are planning a factory of 1,000 machines in the state.” Richa Global Exports is one of the leading Indian apparel exporters.
Maral Overseas Ltd. is also coming up with its garmenting unit in next 1 year, which will create job opportunities for 1,200 people. The company has already purchased land in Smart Industrial Park, Natrip, which is 50 km away from its fabric facility.
The company had a garmenting unit in the state many years ago, which was shifted to Noida where it currently has 2 factories, so why a unit in MP? Apparel Resources asked DK Mittal, President of the company. “Proximity with fabric unit will ease us with less transit time as well as our PD and R&D will be strengthened by having fabric and garment units nearby.” He further added that the minimum wage in MP is still less than in Noida.
Siva Ganpathy, MD, Gokaldas Exports; Shreyaskar Chaudhary, MD, Pratibha Syntex and Sachit Jain of Vardhman Textiles were also part of this investor summit.
Pratibha Syntex already has a huge garment manufacturing setup in the state while Gokaldas Exports so far do not have any operations in the state. Giants Trident Group and Vardhman do have their textile operations in the state.
Trident Group also announced an investment of Rs. 3,000 crore, which includes investment in textiles as well as solar energy. “We want to create an art and craft village in MP in next 2 years, and we will create a global market for them with the ‘Made in MP’ brand. We will also set up a 100 MW solar power plant in the state,” said Rajinder Gupta, Chairman of the Ludhiana-based group.
He further added that the textile industry is connected across the value chain from the farm to the customer. Machine learning, IoT, sustainability have to be promoted and Government should take initiatives to promote sustainability adoption by industry.
Apart from India’s textile conglomerate, global players are also investing in the state. One such global investor is Avgol, Israel, which has announced an investment of Rs. 1,250 crore in the fabric and logistic sector.
It is pertinent to mention here that recently the State Government came up with many initiatives to attract the investors. The new MSMS development policy and the new real estate policy have been finalised, and a subsidy of Rs. 1 crore for the start-ups has been announced.
One of the most interesting points in the above policies is that if any company has any land in the state, then it need not wait for any approvals. The project can be started immediately, but needs to be completed in 3 years. After 3 years, the Government will decide whether all processes were followed or not.
The CM has directed to develop 4 new textile parks in an area of about 140 hectares in cities like Indore, Chhindwara, Ratlam and Bhopal.
MP has an apparel manufacturing hub like Indore, which is known mainly for domestic market and thousands of SMEs are running their manufacturing and trading units there. Additional Chief Secretary Mohammed Suleman shared that the efforts are also being made to encourage small entrepreneurs in the traditional textile industry of Madhya Pradesh.
“Global brands are sourcing to MP to support organic cotton farmers. I am hopeful that with the new land use policy, the industry will be able to have housing infrastructure near the garment and textile units. It is very much required in industrial areas like Pithampur (Indore). It will be like suburbanisation, suburban communities …outside the major cities, ” Shreyaskar Chaudhary, MD, Pratibha Syntex
On the other side, retail and logistics sectors are also attracting investment as Reliance Industries Ltd. announced to add 600 stores in the state. And it will also invest in national distribution centres with over 10 million square feet of space across 45 locations and renewable energy sector.
