FM hikes textile outlay to Rs 7148 cr, doubles customs duty on

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today hiked the outlay for the textiles sector to Rs 7,148 crore for 2018-19 and announced doubling of customs duty on silk fabric to 20 per cent.
The revised outlay for the Ministry of Textiles was Rs 6,250.8 crore in the current financial year, budget documents showed.
"The government had approved a comprehensive textile sector package of Rs 6,000 crore in 2016 to boost the apparel and made-ups segments. I now propose to provide an outlay of Rs 7,148 crore for the textile sector in 2018-19," Jaitley said while presenting the Budget 2018-19 in Parliament.
"Grateful to PM @ narendramodi ji & FM @arunjaitley ji for allocating Rs 7,148 crore for Textiles that will stimulate growth of the sector (sic)," Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said in a tweet.

The budget documents also showed that the proposed allocation for Remission of State Levies (ROSL) has been increased from Rs 1,855 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 2,163.85 crore in the coming financial year.
"This will help the exporters of made-ups and apparels as backlog will be cleared and working capital released," Confederation of Indian Textile Industry Chairman Sanjay Jain said.

According to the budget documents, the proposed outlay for the Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme has also been raised to Rs 2,300 crore from Rs 1,956 crore.
Jain said this would mean that companies will get their arrears faster.
"Basic custom duty on silk fabric increased to 20 per cent from 10 per cent would save the industry from dumping from China. The industry post GST is facing higher imports across the value added segment and was seeking increase in BCD across yarn and fabric, hence disappointed with this partial measure," Jain said.

However, silk exporters expressed unhappiness over the doubling of customs duty on silk fabric.
"This (raising customs duty from 10 to 20 per cent) is going to hamper the silk garment exports which are already suffering," Indian Silk Export Promotion Council Chairman Satish Gupta told PTI.