The President to lay foundation stone of Greenfield Project by NTC

06 Sep '08

5 min read

The President, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil will lay the foundation stone for the Greenfield Project being set up by National Textile Corporation (NTC), tomorrow at Achalpur, District Amravati, Maharashtra.

The Union Minister for Textiles, Shri Shankersinh Vaghela, said this while addressing a Press Conference in Mumbai.

He said that the green field project will be a composite textiles mill, which will house latest machinery comprising 144 Shuttleless Looms, 48,000 Spindles and facilities to dye 4,000 kg of yarn and process 60,000 metres of fabric per day and will provide employment to 1,284 persons.

The cost of modernization will be Rs. 236 crore and the first phase will operationalise by March 2009.

Shri Vaghela said that due to untiring efforts of the Government, the Modified Revival Scheme (MRS) for the National Textiles Corporation (NTC), at an estimated cost of Rs. 5,267 crore, was approved by the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) on March 28, 2006.

This scheme will be financed through interest free loans of Rs. 528 crore from the Government of India, and Rs. 4,739 crore will accrue from the sale of land and other assets.

The Minister informed that NTC is reviving 21 mills through Public Private Partnership (PPP) route through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).

Of these, ten mills are in Maharashtra at Hinganghat, Akola, Jalgaon, Dhule, Nanded and Mumbai (India United Mills No. 1, New City of Bombay Mfg. Mills, Aurangabad Textile Mills, Gold Mohur Mills and Apollo Textile Mills).

The Minister said that NTC is modernizing 22 mills through internal resources in two phases and of these 22mills, three mills are in Mumbai, viz, Tata Mills, Podar Mills, India United Mills no. 5 and one mill at Barshi, District Sholapur.

As part of implementation of MRS, the corporation has disbursed Rs. 2,118 crore to 59,017 workers as Modified Voluntary Retirement Scheme (MVRS) compensation, he added.

The Minister said that due to focused support provided by the Government to farmers, cotton production was a record high of 315 lakh bales (170 kg. each), in the cotton season of 2007-08 (October-September).

The productivity of cotton has jumped to 553 kg/hectare in the Cotton Season of 2007-08, from 399 kg/hectare in the cotton season of 2003-04.

Since 2005-06, the country has become a net exporter of cotton. In 2007-08, cotton exports exceeded the target of 65 lakh bales and were 100 lakh bales mainly due to fall in acerage in the USA and higher global demand.

The Minister added that the reasons for increase in the production include increasing usage of Bt cotton and the implementation of the Technology Mission on Cotton (TMC).

The area under the Bt cultivation, which was around 5 lakh hectares in the cotton season of 2003-04, has gone up to 66 lakh hectares in the cotton season of 2007-08.

Shri Vaghela said that the Government is operating the Minimum Support Price (MSP) Scheme through the Cotton Corporation of India Ltd (CCI) to ensure a minimum return to the farmer even in the depressed market conditions.

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