Surat powerloom mega cluster to boost exports, says PDEXCIL

According to the PDEXCIL, post such a mega cluster, the industry expects a global share of 10 per cent by 2017-18 from current 5.2%

Even as the Ministry of Textiles opens tenders for appointment of a cluster management and technical agency for development of a powerloom mega cluster in Surat, the industry is expecting a boost to textile exports from the cluster.

According to the Powerloom Development Export Promotion Council (PDEXCIL), post such a mega cluster, the industry expects a global share of 10 per cent by 2017-18 from current 5.2 per cent.

"The mega cluster at Surat, among other places, will boost exports so much so that we expect the global share to grow from current 5.2 per cent to 10 per cent by 2017-18. Moreover, we expect the exports to grow on the back of such mega powerloom clusters from Rs 52000 crore for 2013-14 to Rs 1,76,000 crore by end of 2017-18," said a senior official of PDEXCIL.

Moreover, while currently about 62-63 per cent of fabric come from powerloom, the council expects the same to grow to over 70-75 per cent too in near future.

A mega powerloom cluster in Surat comes in the wake of the recent budget announcement given the city's textile industry strength, which involves spinning, weaving, processing, garmenting and exports, employing around 150,000 people directly. Market estimates put the industry turnover in the range of Rs 40,000-50,000 crore annually.

In order to provide impetus to the powerloom sector by creating state of the art infrastructure, the Ministry of Textiles is developing Surat as a powerloom mega cluster with a central government assistance of upto Rs 50 crore. As per the ministry, the scheme has been commissioned to scale up the infrastructural facilities and production chain at traditional textiles clusters, which have remained unorganized and have not kept pace with the modernization and development that have been taking place so far.

It needs to be mentioned here that out of 2.3 million registered powerlooms producing 54,000 million sq. metres of cloth and accounting for 5.74 million number of direct/ indirect employment, only 105,000 looms are shuttleless.

Among other things, the project will comprise common facility centres (CFCs) and mini industrial parks.