Restrict cheap labour, pay workers well: Piyush Goyal chairs review meeting of PLI for textiles; interacts with beneficiaries

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Minister urged the textile industry to move up the value chain and focus on products of high value during a review meeting of the PLI (Production-Linked Incentive) scheme for the textile industry and its beneficiaries 

Minister said the textile sector's USP should not be restricted to cheap labour; workers should be paid well and given social security. He instructed the textile ministry to ensure extensive and exhaustive stakeholder consultations before finalizing PLI 2.0.

He asked the beneficiaries of the PLI scheme to improve the quality of textile products made in India to make them world-class.

The Minister said that the center has been looking at PLI 2.0 and instructed officials of the Ministry to undertake extensive and exhaustive stakeholder consultations before finalizing the contours of PLI 2.0. 

He asked them to make PLI 2.0 robust and emphasized that the second edition of PLI for textile would empower the sector to compete globally with top exporting countries like China, and Vietnam.

The review meeting was attended by representatives of 49 companies and key dignitaries of the Ministry of Textiles. 

Under the PLI Textile Part 1, 67 applicants applied, of which 64 were selected. The proposed investment during the entire tenure of the scheme is Rs 19,789 Cr out of which Rs 1,536 Cr. has been invested so far.

This meeting was held to understand the implementation status of the projects under the Scheme and for resolving their issues. Companies complimented the Ministry for the PLI scheme. 

At the meeting, several procedural issues were clarified for the sake of easy understanding. NICDC shared the ready availability of land with plug-and-play facilities at Dholera, Aurangabad, Greater NOIDA and Indore.

 Goyal also directed the ministry team to actively engage with the participants and resolve state and administrative issues they faced. 

He urged textile industry players to work with a sense of duty, a 'kartavya bhavana', aim higher, and dream bigger to take the Indian textile industry to greater heights.