Minister of Textiles Chandrakant Dada Patil has said that the State Government will accept some of the major recommendations suggested by the Suresh Halwankar committee on the new textile policy for state. Suggestions of the committee are to reduce power tariff for textile industry, scrapping of MPCB nod for spinning, weaving or knitting mills, allowing women to work in night shifts to improve production and 75 per cent subsidy for design-cum-sampling centres, 0.5 per cent cess on purchase of cotton for insurance of workers, 25 per cent subsidy for setting up skill development centre affiliated to all big industries for offering relevant programmes with the help of IITs. It also includes 25 per cent subsidy on conversion of shuttle loom to semi-automatic looms, 10 per cent subsidy instead of 5 per cent for technical textiles with a cap of Rs. 50 lakh and 30 per cent subsidy for further advancements in B and C zones of the state; 40 per cent for D zone.
Maharashtra is second-largest cotton producer in India with over 81 lakh bales. Of this, only 25 lakh bales are consumed by the spinning mills in state. The report says, “To utilise all cotton grown in state, over 50 lakh spindles are needed and investment of Rs. 50,000 crore.
