INDIA: Synthetic Fiber Industry May Be Brought Under TUFS

In a move that may have long-term consequences for the textile industry as a whole, the synthetic fiber industry is all set to be brought under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) launched by the Ministry of Textiles in 1999 with a corpus of Rs 25,000 crore.

The Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals is likely to send in its formal recommendation for inclusion of synthetic fibers in the TUFS shortly to the Ministry of Textiles, which is the administrative Ministry monitoring the fund, Government sources said.

It may be mentioned that initially, the TUFS was set up for the weaving and processing sectors and later the spinning industry was also included. This was primarily because the natural fiber industry was losing out to the technology-based synthetic fibers in textile applications.

The latest move follows the recommendations of the Task Force on Chemicals and Petrochemicals set up by the Department under the chairmanship of Mr. G.V. Ramakrishna.

The major beneficiaries of the decision could be corporate houses such as Reliance and Indo Rama Synthetics, the two largest players in the industry, as well as JCT.

The task force had stated in its report that the domestic synthetic fiber industry is fragmented and most of the plants are of sub-optimal size using outdate technology.

Source: Bharat Textile

July 21, 2003