Indian minister assures all support to footwear industry

22 Apr '20

1 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Indian minister for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) and road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari recently assured the footwear industry of all possible government support to tackle the challenges posed by the COVID-19 lockdown. He was interacting with representatives of the Confederation of Indian Footwear Industries via video conference from Nagpur.

The government has released over ₹5,204 crore to MSMEs as income tax refund in the last ten days that will help the sector in a big way, he said.

He called upon the industry to work upon import substitution and make use of the opportunity for export, according to a press release from the MSME ministry.

The representatives of footwear industry expressed concerns regarding lack of working capital, logistics, availability of raw material, workspace conditions, continuity of business operations and impact on demand of footwear.

Even after the lockdown, production will start gradually and will take a few months to reach full capacity and that would lead to issues of excess of raw material. It was requested that footwear raw material import from China should be stopped so that raw material stock is not flooded.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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