ATUFS to help textile industry plan investments: SIMA

31 Dec '15

2 min read

The Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS) approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) would ease the textile industry's financial position and enable it to plan investments, the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) has said.

On December 30, the CCEA, chaired by the Prime Minister approved the introduction of ATUFS in place of the existing Revised Restructured Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (RR-TUFS) for technology upgradation of the textiles industry, with effect from the date of notification of the scheme.

A budget provision of Rs.17,822 crore has been approved, of which Rs. 12,671 crore is for committed liabilities under the ongoing scheme, and Rs. 5,151 crore is for new cases under ATUFS.

In a press release, SIMA Chairman M Senthilkumar said that the new sanctions under TUFS were kept pending since April 2014 for want of funds. He thanked textiles minister Santhosh Kumar Gangwar for persuading the Finance Ministry and PMO and making the continuation of TUFS a success.

Senthilkumar appreciated the announcement of ease of doing business and also reorganizing the Office of the Textile Commissioner so that the TXC could closely associate with the entrepreneurs, bankers and State governments and implement the projects on a fast track mode.

The SIMA chief welcomed the announcement of capital subsidy in lieu of existing combination of interest subsidy and capital subsidy and felt that the textile units making investments would be in a position to get timely assistance without any problem. He has added that several hundreds of units have been affected under the earlier schemes due to the lack of transparency and the mistakes committed by the bankers.

He said that the i-TUFS software launched in April 2015 would make the scheme very transparent and enable the investors to track the position of their application and avoid mistakes and delays. He expressed hope that the A-TUFS and i-TUFS would enable all the stakeholders to implement the scheme without hassles and the subsidy would reach the beneficiaries on time.

But he pointed out that the scheme is silent about the long pending TUF subsidies of blackout period and cases that were left out. He has appealed to the Centre to reconsider all such cases, otherwise investments worth over Rs. 65,000 crores are likely to become NPAs.

Senthilkumar reiterated that the TUF scheme has enabled the textile industry to function without reporting any NPA during the last 15 years and also enabled the sector to remain healthy. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India

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