The proposed legislation, ‘textile industry development, promotion and standard Act’, has been abandoned by the Ministry of Textiles. The legislation was aimed at overriding multiple laws and ordinances under its administrative control. According to sources work on important issues regarding proposed textile bill, textile policy, and Export Development Fund (EDF) has almost come to a standstill.

The absence of a full-time minister and lack of direction on whether or not the textile industry should be merged with the commerce industry are just some reasons for this state of affairs. Sources state that work on the final draft of the proposed Act was completed early this year after consulting with other stakeholders. The Act was pending for the lat six years and now, the proposed legislation was ready to be submitted to the Law Division for vetting; yet it is around seven months and the Law Division has not received it.

The Federal Textiles Board was notified and restructured to facilitate the textile stakeholders. The platform was supposed to serve to monitor the implementation of Textiles Policy (2014-19), along with rationalisation of cess/surcharges that is applicable on textiles value chain industry and its exports and utilisation. Besides, the Research, Development and Advisory (RDA) Cell was set to be the secretariat of the Board. Moreover, the existing RDA Cell officers were supposed to be responsible for the overall implementation and monitoring of Textile Policy. The Board, however, is yet to meet after all this time.