'Rs 3000 mn released under TUF not adequate – Mr Nair, CITI
21 Nov '08
2 min read
The government is all set to disburse within ten days, the outstanding amounts under the Technology Up-gradation Fund Scheme (TUF) to the textile industry amounting to Rs 3,000 million. The TUF scheme was introduced in 1999 and modified last year. Under the scheme, a company is eligible for 5 percent interest reimbursement and 10 percent capital subsidy required in modernization of textile machinery, subject to technology bench marks specified under the scheme.
Fibre2fashion spoke to Mr DK Nair, Secretary General of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) who did not seem much enthusiastic about the disbursal. He was quite categorical when he said, “In the Central Budget of 2008-09, an amount of Rs.10,900 million had been provided for TUFS and we had pointed out immediately after the presentation of the budget, that this amount was "woefully inadequate".
He added by saying that “Textile Ministry has already released the entire amount of Rs.10,900 million which has covered only the backlog of last year's claims for the period up to September 2007, that too not all the claims. Thus, more than half of the claims of last fiscal and all the claims of the current year for TUFS assistance are still pending. We understand that Rs.3,000 million has been made available for the scheme in the revised estimates passed by Parliament recently.”