Scheme for Textile Parks failed to realize objectives

New Delhi: The Textiles Ministry said that the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP) failed to achieve its objectives due to factors like small size of the parks and lack of marketing support from the government. The report has recommended that a new scheme — Mega Textile Parks — be launched with parks having minimum land size of 1,000 acres, and infrastructure support in the form of readymade factory sheds, warehouse, incubation centres and testing labs, with express connectivity to seaports and airports.

The other reasons are lack of coordination among the units in the park, inability to attract the right investors, failure to achieve economies of scale and lack of collective approach in raw material sourcing and marketing, said the report by Wazir Advisors, submitted to the Textiles Ministry. It suggested that the mega textile parks should be established in Industrial Corridors and/or areas with proximity to seaports, and the financial support must be linked with ‘extent of area developed, without any ceiling on financial assistance”.

The cost of manufacturing inside the park was found to be only marginally higher than an industrial zone in vicinity due to higher cost of land and maintenance inside the park.

The current employment level in 30 functional parks is around 68,000 people, 57 per cent of their planned employment.  There are 74 parks sanctioned till date. Out of these 30 parks are functional, while eight have applied for cancellation and others are at various stages of implementation.  The functional parks are involved in production of spun yarn, fabric weaving and knitting, fabric processing, garmenting, made-up manufacturing, and technical textiles.