Panipat to have facilitation centre for handloom industry: Smriti Irani

Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Panipat, May 8

Union Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani has announced that a facilitation centre meeting international standards will be established in Panipat.

Facilities like international laboratory and designing studio will be available and the centre will play an important role in improving the lot of industrialists and weavers, she said here today.

Irani was addressing textile exporters and handloom industrialists and weavers. She was the chief guest at ‘Roadshow on Textile India 2017’.

A big exhibition hall would be set up for the handloom industry, she said. Industrialists would be able to exhibit their products at the hall so that buyers from across the country and abroad could see the products under one roof, she added.

The Union minister asserted that the textile industry was the only industry to record a growth of between 18 per cent and 20 per cent in the last five years.

She said the handloom industry had reached the Rs 37,000 crore level at the domestic and export levels, which was a positive sign.

To increase productivity, there was a need to strengthen basic amenities and infrastructure of the handloom industry, she added.

She invited industrialists to the ‘Textile India 2017’ summit to be held in Gandhinagar in Gujarat from June 30 to July 2.

The Union minister told the gathering that it would be the first time that the Centre would organise an international textile summit in Gandhinagar.

More than 2,500 buyers from abroad and around 20,000 buyers from the domestic market were expected, she said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi would inaugurate the summit on June 30, she said. Around 33 round table conferences would be organised during the three-day summit, she added.

She urged exporters and other industrialists to participate in the summit in large numbers and make their products visible globally.

She asked state’s Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar and Member of Parliament Ashwani Chopra to talk to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar for solving the problems of industrialists.

Chopra assured the Union minister about large-scale participation of Panipat industrialists in the three-day Gandhinagar summit.