Textile park in Ludhiana to be game changer, to boost exports

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, June 6

The upcoming textile park over 1,000 acres at Koom Kalan near here will be a game changer for the textile and garment industry and will further boost exports from Ludhiana, which was one of the three major textile clusters in the state, the government has claimed.

The state’s three clusters — Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar — export textiles and garments worth almost Rs 12,000 crore every year. In 2019-20, the three clusters in Punjab, which was among top 10 states for textile and garment exports in the country, had logged exports worth Rs 11,639.63 crore, the official figures have revealed. Major export destinations include the USA, UAE, UK, and Australia.

Sharing details of the textile ecosystem, Director-cum-Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Sibin C, told The Tribune, that Punjab had a strong presence of the textile sector in various regions of the state and possesses a complete textile value chain.

“Over 1,200 units of textile and wearing apparel are there in the state, employing about 1.2 lakh persons directly. The state is home to major textile players such as Trident, Nahar, Vardhman, Shingora, Sportking, Nivia, Savi, Avani Textiles, JCT Mills, and Indian Acrylics,” he said.

Divulging the raw material information, Sibin said there was abundant availability of variety of quality raw material in Punjab, both natural and man-made.

The state has been recording the highest yield (kg/ hectare) for cotton in the country with 690 kg per hectare yield recorded in 2020-21.

Further, Punjab accounts for 23 per cent of national cotton production. The state also has availability of man-made fibre, yarn, and fabric, including polyester staple fibre and polyester fibre fill, from companies such as Reliance Industries Limited in Hoshiarpur, Shiva Tex Fabrics in Ludhiana and Aqua Fiber Industries in Mohali, besides acrylic yarn from firms, including Vardhman and Arisudana.

With HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) operating a state-of-the-art crude oil refinery of 11.3 million MT per annum capacity in Bathinda along with a polypropylene (PP) unit having a production capacity of 467 KTA, units for polyethylene (PE) production were also being established. “Both these products, PP and PE, can be converted in raw material for the textile sector, especially for technical textiles such as geotextiles,” he said.

On the skilled manpower front, Punjab has 10 major specialised institutes engaged in the textile sector. Besides, there were 349 ITIs offering over 70 courses, including textile and apparel sector courses, with an intake capacity of about 80,000 students.

Ludhiana, being the industrial capital of Punjab, has 33 ITIs of which 13 ITIs offer textile and apparel sector courses. Besides 130 diploma and polytechnic colleges, the state also has 193 engineering colleges with an annual capacity of 28,000 students.

Additionally, there were more than 1,000 skill development centres in the state with a total training capacity of 60,000. Under textile and apparel sector, Punjab Skill Development Mission (PSDM) has empaneled 250 training partners.

Divulging incentives on offer, Sibin said textile was identified as a thrust sector for the state under the Industrial Business Development Policy (IBDP), 2017. As per the policy, attractive incentives such as net GST reimbursement and employment subsidy were offered to ultra-mega, mega projects, anchor units, thrust sector units and MSMEs.

As many as seven mega industrial estates were coming up under the entire textile value chain, touted as the textile park, at the cost of Rs 4,445 crore, in Ludhiana.

The ambitious industrial project, which has been approved under the PM Mitra scheme, will be a joint venture between the Centre and the state.

The project will be established over a period of five years, up to 2027-28, for which the requisite funds have been approved under the scheme.

Seven mega industrial estates coming up

• As many as seven mega industrial estates were coming up under the entire textile value chain, touted as the textile park, at the cost of Rs 4,445 crore, in Ludhiana.
• The project will be established over a period of five years, up to 2027-28, for which requisite funds have been approved under the scheme.

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