Budget: Textiles Min FY'20 allocation pruned to Rs 5,831.48 cr

Finance Minister Piyush Goyal has proposed Rs 5,831.48 crore budgetary allocation for the textile ministry for 2019-20, which is 16.01 per cent lower than the current fiscal.

As per the budget document tabled in Parliament on Friday, the revised expenditure (RE) for the textile ministry has been pegged at Rs 6,943.26 crore during 2018-19.

The original budget proposal was Rs 7,147.73 crore to fund various programmes and schemes for the textile sector.

"The low allocation for ATUF & ROSL schemes for textiles is worrisome as it is clearly not sufficient to meet obligations under the schemes, both backlog and expected fund requirements in 2019-20.

"However, since this is an interim budget, we hope more funds will be allocated for these schemes," Confederation of Indian Textile Industry Chairman Sanjay Jain told PTI.

According to the budget document, Rs 700 crore has been allocated towards the Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS) for the next fiscal, as against Rs 622.63 crore for 2018-19.

Besides, a provision of Rs 1,000 crore has been made towards the Remission of State Levies (ROSL) as compared to Rs 3,663.85 crore in the revised estimate of 2018-19.

The government had earmarked Rs 2,163.85 crore for ROSL in the previous year's Budget.