India needs to reduce import dependency of textile machinery: Piyush Goyal

Union trade and textiles minister Piyush Goyal has urged the textile industry to develop 100 Indian textile machinery champions recognized across the world to reduce the import dependency of the textile machinery.

Goyal was interacting with the textile machinery manufacturers in a video conference on ‘Technology Gap and Way Forward for Textiles Machinery Manufactures’. The minister also asked the textile machinery manufacturers to get out of command-and-control mindset and work through plug-and-play to make the textile sector vibrant in name and sprit.

“India should be looking to become a global player in producing textiles machinery, producing at scale, producing with quality and quantity the machinery of choice that the world requires. We are not averse to imports but we must reduce the import dependency of the textile machinery in India by concerted effort between textile engineering industry and government together. Focus on quality will help to capture bigger markets and higher productivity,” he added.

Goyal expressed hope that a modern and upgraded textile machinery ecosystem would have a cascading impact on unorganized Indian textile industry. “This would set the momentum for continuous advancement and innovation, resulting into ever-evolving and enhancing competitive capabilities along the value chain. The machinery manufacturing facility would change the inertia of the status quo, augment the dynamics along value chain and enhance the domestic consumption and further boost the export of higher value goods while gradually reducing the import dependency. For this it is important to synergize the efforts of (various) arms of the government (such as) ministry of textiles, ministry of heavy industries, digital innovation/adaptation possibilities in our quest of increasing efficiencies by reducing costs across manufacturing value chain,” he said.

The minister informed that heavy industries capital goods scheme is a pilot scheme designed to support the industry to modernize domestic technologies. “National Capital Goods Policy is a manufacturing sector policy devised by the government of India aimed at increasing the production of capital goods from the 2014-15 value of approximately $31 billion to $101 billion by 2025,” he added.