The government on Thursday said that no mill under National Textile Corporation (NTC) Ltd was closed down in the last two years.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Textiles Darshana Jardosh said due to the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown imposed by the various states, the production activities in all NTC Ltd mill units were put on hold from March 25, 2020.

After lifting of the lockdown and as per availability of raw material, NTC restored operation of 14 mill units from January 2021 onwards.

She said the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic again led to the closure of all NTC mill operations in April 2021.

Now, NTC has restored operations in some of its mills in July 2021 as per raw material availability, and the employees were paid salary regularly as per their status by NTC out of its cash reserve, the minister said.

"Under NTC Ltd, a Central Public Sector Enterprise under Ministry of Textiles, no mill was closed down during the last 2 years," she added.

In a separate reply, she said under SITP (Scheme for Integrated Textile Park), 66 parks were sanctioned.

"24 have been completed as per scheme guidelines, 32 are operational and at various stages of implementation and 10 parks have been cancelled," she said.