Introduction India’s textiles sector is one of the oldest industries in the Indian economy, dating back to several centuries. The industry is extremely varied, with hand-spun and hand-woven textiles sectors at one end of the spectrum, while the capital-intensive sophisticated mills sector on the other end. The decentralised power looms/ hosiery and knitting sector forms the largest component in the textiles sector. The close linkage of textiles industry to agriculture (for raw materials such as cotton) and the ancient culture and traditions of the country in terms of textiles makes it unique in comparison to other industries in the country. India’s textiles industry has a capacity to produce wide variety of products suitable for different market segments, both within India and across the world.
The decentralized power looms/ hosiery and knitting sector form the largest component of the textiles sector. The close linkage of the textile industry to agriculture (for raw materials such as cotton) and the ancient culture and traditions of the country in terms of textiles make the Indian textiles sector unique in comparison to the industries of other countries. The Indian textile industry has the capacity to produce a wide variety of products suitable to different market segments, both within India and across the world. offers direct employment to over 35 million in the country. The first modem cotton textile mill -Fort Glaster near Kolkata(1818 )
EVOLUTION OF THE INDIAN TEXTILE SECTOR
The organized sector of the textile industry represents the mills. It could be a spinning mill or a composite mill. Composite mill is one where the spinning, weaving and processing facilities are carried out under one roof. The decentralized sector is engaged mainly in the weaving activity, which makes it heavily dependent on the organized sector for their yarn requirements. This decentralized sector is comprised of the three major segments viz., powerloom , handloom and hosiery . In addition to the above, there are readymade garments, khadi as well as carpet manufacturing units in the decentralized sector.
Current Scenario India is first in global jute production and shares 63% of the global textile and garment market. India is second in global textile manufacturing and also second in silk and cotton production. 100% FDI is allowed via automatic route in textile sector. Benetton and Levi’s are some of the foreign textile companies invested or working in India.
Current Scenario Textile Industry contributes around 4% of GDP, 18% of employment in industrial sector 13 % share in the country’s export. Importing countries are Japan, US, UK, Russia, France, Nepal Sri Lanka. India is the largest exporter of yarn in the international market and has a share of 25% in world cotton yarn export market. India contributes for 12% of the world’s production of textile fibers and yarn.
Market Size India’s textiles industry contributed 7% to the industry output (by value) in 2018-19. The Indian textiles and apparel industry contributed 2% to the GDP, 12% to export earnings and held 5% of the global trade in textiles and apparel in 2018-19. The share of the India’s textiles and apparel exports in mercantile shipments was 11% in 2019-20. Textiles industry has around 4.5 crore employed workers including 35.22 lakh handloom workers across the country. Cotton production is expected to reach 37.10 million bales and consumption is expected to reach 114 million bales in FY21—13% growth over the previous year.
Handloom Exports The export of handloom products from India was valued at US$ 343.69 million in FY19. In FY20, the export stood at US$ 319.02 million. The handloom products export between from April 2020 to March 2021 was US$ 223.19 million and for the month of March 2021 it was US$ 23.43 million. The other woven fabrics of handloom export was US$ 7.55 million between April 2020 and February 2021. In FY21, the US was the major importer of Indian handloom products, with an estimated purchase of US$ 83.11 million, followed by the UK, Australia, Germany, and France at US$ 18.99 million, US$ 10.7 million, US$ 9.94 million and US$ 9.73 million respectively. Nearly 15% of cloth production in India is from the handloom sector. Cloth production in 2019-20 (till January 2020) stood at 63,348 square meters. Production of hand-woven fabric from India constitute 95% of the global
Textiles Man Made Fibres: This includes manufacturing of clothes using fibre or filament synthetic yarns. It is produced in the large power loom factories. They account for the largest sector of the textile production in India. This sector has a share of 62% of the India's total production and provides employment to about 4.8 million people. The Cotton Sector: It is the second most developed sector in the Indian Textile industries. It provides employment to huge amount of people but its productions and employment is seasonal depending upon the seasonal nature of the production. The Handloom Sector : It is well developed and is mainly dependent on the Self Help Groups for their funds. Its market share is 13%. of the total cloth produced in India.
The Woolen Sector : India is the 7th largest producer of the wool in the world. India also produces 1.8% of the world's total wool. The Jute Sector : The jute or the golden fibre in India is mainly produced in the Eastern states of India like Assam and West Bengal. India is the largest producer of jute in the world. The Sericulture and Silk Sector: India is the 2nd largest producer of silk in the world. India produces 18% of the world's total silk. Mulberry, Eri, Tasar, and Muga are the main types of silk produced in the country. It is a labour-intensive sector.
Importance of Cotton Industry Cotton is grown in our country over an area of about eight million hectares and average production during the last few seasons had been around eighty seven lakh bales. At present the industry provides direct employment to nearly fifteen lakh workers. It also provides indirect employment to many millions like the cotton growers, processors, handloom and power-loom weavers who alone are estimated over three million and innumerable cloth dealers and shopkeepers.
Importance of Cotton Industry With an annual growth of 2.5 per cent in population the domestic demand for textiles is rising. The industry contributes in ever increasing measures to the Central and State Governments by way of taxes and duties. A large domestic market and plentiful supply of domestic cotton were the two basic factors responsible for the growth and development of cotton textiles into a major key industry
Location : Minister of Textiles disclosed that there are 1399 operational, non-small scale industry (Non-SSI) textile mills in the country Though cotton textile industry being the largest industry in India has spread practically over all parts of the country, it is mostly localised in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. But the share is now declining. Tamil Nadu holds the largest number of operational textile mills – 752 .
Reasons for this location are: (i) Availability of raw material both in good qualities and quantities; (ii) Cheap and developed transport facilities including ports like Bombay and Kandla; (iii) Availability of commercial and financial facilities like export and import houses and banking institutions; (iv) Suitable climate and v) Enterprising capital. In recent years, the cotton textile industry has also spread to a number of other states like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh
Problems of Cotton Textile Industry in India: (a) Obsolete machineries, (b) Problems of modernisation, (c) Lack of raw materials, (d) Non-utilisation of production capacities, (e) Lack of power supply, (f) Increasing Government control and heavy excise duties, (g) Higher unit cost of production, (h) Inefficient and uneconomic units of production, (i) Increasing labour problems, (j) Increasing competition in foreign market, (k) Shortage of finance and (l) Growing sickness among the textile industrial units.
Remedial Measures for Solving the Problem of Cotton Textile Industry: (a) Increasing financial assistance for its modernisation, (b) Reduction of import duties on the import of textile machineries, (c) Reduction of excise duties on improved yarn, (d) Setting up National Textile Corporation (NTC) to run the sick units, (e) Introduction of new Textile Policy in 1985 for the modernisation and expansion of this industry. In recent years,’ several policy measures have been adopted to improve the health of cotton textile industry
These measures are as follows: Textile Modernization Fund, set up in 1986 with a corpus of Rs 750 crores, has received an overwhelming response from the mills. Till the end of September 1992 financial institutions had sanctioned loans amounting to Rs 1,368 crore for 357 cases while disbursements aggregated to Rs 858 crores. A turnaround strategy for the sick mills of NTC and BIC has been evolved by the Government. The package includes providing working capital finance to tide over the liquidity problems, capacity modernisation and shedding of surplus labour through a voluntary retirement scheme which will be handled through the recently established National Renewal Fund (NRF). Other programmes relate to technological upgradation of the handloom sector, Power loom cooperative societies are being encouraged to upgrade capacities in this sector. It is expected that these policy measures will further encourage upgradation of capacities and a higher export orientation to the industry.
In line with the general policy of liberalisation, several measures have been undertaken to eliminate or reduce controls and bring about greater transparency in the textile sector. The textile industry has been de-licensed as per the Textiles (Development and Regulation) Order 1993.
The New Textile Policy: The new National Textiles Policy draft in process aims to achieve $300 billion exports by 2024-25, and creation of additional 35 million jobs by attracting investments. The blueprint termed as the draft 'Vision, Strategy and Action Plan' to revitalize the textiles and apparel industry envisages an additional investment of $120 billion. The key objectives of the new National Textiles Policy include developing a vision statement of the textile sector for the next decade to treble market share from the current 5 per cent in the next decade.
Investment The textiles sector has witnessed a spurt in investment during the last five years. The industry (including dyed and printed) attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) worth US$ 2.97 billion during April 2000 to June 2018. Some of the major investments in the Indian textiles industry are as follows: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), Government of India has approved a new skill development scheme named 'Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector (SCBTS)' with an outlay of Rs 1,300 crore (US$ 202.9 million) from 2017-18 to 2019-20. In May 2018, textiles sector recorded investments worth Rs 27,000 crore (US$ 4.19 billion) since June 2017.
Government Initiatives The Indian government has come up with a number of export promotion policies for the textiles sector. It has also allowed 100 per cent FDI in the Indian textiles sector under the automatic route. Initiatives taken by Government of India are: The Textile Ministry of India earmarked Rs 690 crore (US$ 106.58 million) for setting up 21 ready made garment manufacturing units in seven states for development and modernisation of Indian Textile Sector. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has revised rates for incentives under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) for two subsectors of Textiles Industry - Readymade garments and Made ups - from 2 per cent to 4 per cent.
As of August 2018, the Government of India has increased the basic custom duty to 20 per cent from 10 per cent on 501 textile products, to boost Make in India and indigenous production. The Government of India announced a Special Package to boost exports by US$ 31 billion, create one crore job opportunity and attract investments worth Rs 80,000 crore (US$ 11.93 billion) during 2018-2020. As of August 2018 it generated additional investments worth Rs 25,345 crore (US$ 3.78 billion) and exports worth Rs 57.28 billion (US$ 854.42 million). The Government of India has taken several measures including Amended Technology Up-gradation Fund Scheme (A-TUFS), scheme is estimated to create employment for 35 lakh people and enable investments worth Rs 95,000 crore (US$ 14.17 billion) by 2022.
Road Ahead The future for the Indian textile industry looks promising, buoyed by both strong domestic consumption as well as export demand. With consumerism and disposable income on the rise, the retail sector has experienced a rapid growth in the past decade with the entry of several international players like Marks & Spencer, Guess and Next into the Indian market. High economic growth has resulted in higher disposable income. This has led to rise in demand for products creating a huge domestic market.