Textile mills seek announced power cuts to maintain production

The Southern India Mills' Association has sought announced power cuts so that production is not affected in textile mills.

S.V. Arumugam, its chairman, said that "frequent and unscheduled" power interruptions now affected the quality of yarn made in the mills. The units would be prepared if the power cuts were announced earlier.

Further, spinning mills were bulk consumers of power and he appealed to the State Government for concession in power costs to help the mills bring down their production cost.

Though a number of units had gone in for wind energy, Mr. Arumugam said grid availability should be improved to absorb the energy generated from the windmills.

Investment


Speaking at an interactive session on technical textiles and manpower training held here recently, he said the textile-processing park proposed by the association at Cuddalore aimed at about Rs. 750 crore investment.

The project also looked at marine discharge of treated effluents from the units.

Mr. Arumugam appealed to the State Government for speedy environmental clearances so that the project could take off at the earliest.


Vision document


The vision document prepared to synchronise with the Eleventh Plan envisaged investment of about Rs. 50,000 crore in textiles in Tamil Nadu in another five years.

This would also generate about five million jobs (direct and indirect).

"We look forward to the Government for some assistance to achieve this," he said.

The State produced about five lakh bales of cotton annually though the mills consumed about 40 per cent of the total need of the textile sector in the country.

Hence, efforts were imperative to improve cotton production and productivity, he said.

All the stakeholders involved should focus on research and development with regard to the Extra Long Staple variety of cotton that was essential for good quality output.

The mills were importing most of their requirements of this variety of cotton and this had led to a situation in which they were "saddled with lot of duties."

Source: The Hindu