Textiles Ministry has approached Reserve Bank and the Finance Ministry to accord "priority sector" status to textile industry, a top official said today.
The proposal, if approved, will enable the industry to avail bank loans at 7 per cent or less, providing huge relief to the sector which has been grappling with paucity of low-cost credit.
"We have taken it up with (Ministry of) Finance, Banking (RBI) saying they (textile industry) must get 7 per cent cap on interest rates," Additional Secretary in Textiles Ministry Pushpa Subrahmanyam told PTI.
Union Textiles Minister Santosh Gangwar also said that he has met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley two-three times and discussed the issue, adding that the Finance Minister was "very positive".
Textiles industry is the second largest employer in the country after agriculture, providing jobs to over 45 million people directly and 60 million indirectly.
According to estimates, it contributes around 5 per cent to India's gross domestic product (GDP) and 14 per cent to overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
