LS clears bill to revive sick textile units

To speed up revival of sick textile units, Lok Sabha today passed a bill to free the ailing National Textile Corporation, which has property worth Rs 25 lakh crore, from rent control laws.
The Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Laws (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2014 replaces an ordinance passed by the government.
"We are not here to sell the land....We want to revive the mills. We want to make a package for the revival," Textile Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said in his reply to the debate on the bill.
"We need to evolve various ways and means to run the mills. It is our objective to give employment to more and more people," he said, adding that the government would come up with a new textile policy soon.

The bill aims to ensure proper and effective implementation of the revival scheme for sick textile units.
According to the bill, there is a need "to protect public investment in the acquired textile undertakings to explicitly clarify the status of such vesting of the lease-hold rights in the central government".

The ordinance route was taken to shield the NTC from rent control laws that have been used to evict its sick textile units from prime land in several cities.
"NTC mills are turning around and government is committed to turning them around. NTC has properties worth Rs 25 lakh crore. The Bill would help to run the NTC smoothly so that in future there is no complaint against the runing of NTC," Gangwar said while moving the bill.

He assured the House that the the Centre will work with the Maharashtra government to build "a very good memorial" of Babasaheb Ambedkar on NTC's Indu Mill land in Mumbai.
Members in the opposition wanted the government to ensure that NTC land is effectively utilised given the fact that the land worth of NTC is more than that of gold.