Pakistan’s Ministry of Textile and Industry and its attached departments are at loggerhead over a proposed legislation aimed at overriding multiple laws and ordinances under ministry’s administrative control, it is learnt. The government in February 2015 announced the Textile Policy (2014-19) envisaging doubling of textile exports from $13 billion to $26 billion over the next five years, and creation of 3 million new jobs.

One of the integral components of the policy was the introduction of new legislation to override multiple laws and ordinances under the administrative control of the Ministry of Textile Industry. The Ministry wants to club three laws including Pakistan Cotton Standards Institute (PCSI) Standardisation Ordinance 2002, Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) Cess Act 1923 and textile cess being collected for the National Textile University.

Currently PCSI, a department of the Ministry, collects Rs 20 per loom and one Rupee per spindle, PCCC collects cess of Rs 5 per bale and Textile Commissioner Organisation (TCO) collects textile cess @ Rs 50 per bale for the National Textile University for research work and developing quality cotton seed. Textile Ministry under the proposed law is considering clubbing all these laws into one, after which all the collections would be made by the Ministry itself and disbursed accordingly.