Textile Ministry disburses Rs 66,275 cr under TUFS

New Delhi, Nov 6 : Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran has said his Ministry has disbursed Rs 66,275 crore under the Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (TUFS) till the first quarter of this fiscal since its inception in 1999.

Addressing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of his Ministry here last evening, Mr Maran said the scheme has stimulated additional investments of Rs 1,79,834 crore which benefitted 25,809 textiles units, including 18,266 small scale units.

Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are the major beneficiaries of the scheme, the Minister said.

He said his Ministry had made a provision of Rs 2,890 crore and released subsidy of Rs 2,546 crore under the TUFS on August 6, 2009.

'This is for the first time that such a large amount of subsidy has been released in a single tranche and the amount was credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries in the record time of 72 hours (3 working days). To clear the subsidy till December 2009, we will be requiring additional amount of Rs 1,884 crore at RE stage 2009-10,' said the Minister.

On National Textile Corporation (NTC), Mr Maran said NTC has come out of the red with the help of government support and has drawn a plan to achieve a turnover of Rs 2,014 crore by 2014 from Rs 524 crore during 2008-09.

He said his Ministry will make all out efforts to turn NTC into a profitable enterprise by means of enhanced capacity utilisation (up to 80 per cent), reduction of idle wages and launching aggressive marketing initiatives, and turning the Corporation from spinning company into an integrated textiles company with spinning, weaving, processing and garmenting facilities.

Recently, four modernised textiles mills of NTC at Coimbatore have been inaugurated.

Mr Maran said three modernised mills of NTC at Mumbai and four mills in Kerala at Trissur, Thiruvanthapuram and Kannur will be inaugurated in the coming days.

'NTC had been asked to exploit the opportunities in this area and it is going to set up a Technical Textiles unit in its existing mills at Coimbatore,' he informed.

--UNI

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