The ministry is urging engineering organizations to meet the gap in domestic machinery production and demand, informed Smriti Irani, Minister of Textiles.

One of the challenges that the Indian textile industry faces is the shortage of machine tools, saids Irani. With the guidance of Principal Scientific Advisor, K Vijay Raghavan, Irani reached out to IITs across the country, particularly Chennai, to highlight to them what the machinery needs of the industry were.

Another challenge facing the sector was that machine tool making did not fall within the Textile Ministry administratively, Irani said. However, she ensured that it will make sure the machines are made in India.

Irani said, the PLI scheme aims to create global champions in MMF apparel and Technical Textiles by providing incentive from 3 per cent to 15 per cent on stipulated incremental turnover for five years.

She said, the National Textiles Policy has been delayed because it could not have been conclusive when other things were developing. Irani appreciated the reforms in agriculture and labor but added that the new policy needed to find a balance between government’s speedy allocations and the industry’s preparedness to take that allocation and convert it into opportunity.