Centre insensitive to the problems of textile mills

Protesting against the alleged 'negligence and insensivity of the centre' towards the problems of textile industry, spinning mills the country would go on one day token strike soon.
The date would be announced after consulting Confederation of Indian Textile Industry and North India Textile Mills association, T Rajkumar, Chairman of Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) said today.
Despite highlighting the problems to the Commerce, Textile and Finance ministries through representations and personal meetings, no action was taken to solve them, affecting the spinning mills adversely, Rajkumar said after an emergency meeting of SIMA's high level committee this evening.
The spinners wanted a level playing field by making raw material cost both cotton and synthetic fibres available at a slightly lower or on par with International prices, he said.

Stating that the Government should expedite Free Trade Agreements with all the major textile importing countries particularly China and EU and make the tariff rate slightly lower or on par with other competing nations, he said that a National Textile policy should be announced at the earliest.
The meeting also urged the Centre to allocate Rs 6,500 crore to clear all pending cases and existing committed liabilities of Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, he said.
Similarly, the Govenrment should expedite the implementation of Goods and Service Tax and bring textile products under lowest rate of GST as the textile industry was low profit margin industry, Rajkumar said.

The industry would decide the future course of action, including stopping of one day production of yarn across the country, if the Government failed to address the grievances, Rajkumar added.