Bhopal: Upcoming festive season will be a moment of truth for state’s MSMEs. According to a recent Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (ICRA) report, textile exporters would experience 20 to 25% rise in business in the ongoing fiscal. Garments and textile industries account for the second largest section of MSMEs in the state.
“Textile sector is doing well. Growth in exports is also looking up. The sector majorly has MSMEs. As far as expectations from the festive season are concerned, textile and apparel business are definitely expecting it to be better than last year. The trend is towards improvement in sales. However, reaching 2019 level will take some time. Businesses have now understood Covid-19 environment and they know how much goods to stock,” said Shreyaskar Choudhary, vice president of MP Textile Mills Association.
There are more than 60 registered cotton or artificial fibre textile mills in the state with installed capacity of 24.6 lakh spindles. According to Textile Apparels Initiative of Government of Madhya Pradesh, major centres of textile industry in the state are Indore, Bhopal, Ujjain, Dhar, Dewas, Khargone, Khandwa, Burhanpur, Gwalior, Chhindwara and Jabalpur. Readymade garment industry cluster at Indore houses over 1,200 units along with an apparel designing centre. “Electronics and food segments are already doing well. The real indicator is garments after food. The second-largest category of consumption in MP is garments or textiles which haven’t been as successful yet after the economy picked up post lockdown. The growth would come if casual clothing and festive clothing recover,” added Choudhary.
The government on Wednesday approved Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for man-made fibre-based apparel and 10 segments of technical textiles with a budgetary outlay of Rs 10,683 crore. Also, export-incentive schemes such as Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) and Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) are expected to boost the textiles sector.
“The government’s initiatives like RoSCTL, RoDTEP and PLI scheme will help MSMEs do better during the festive season. The demand is likely to go up,” F Sonal, sales executive of Madhu Textile Agency in Chhindwara told Free Press.
“Festive season gains will nowhere be close to what we lost but it will help regain some confidence. If there is a third wave, it would definitely hit the confidence but we are better prepared this time,” she, however, added.
