Uniform GST rate for textile industry?

The textile industry is expected to have a uniform GST rate, says Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani. She disclosed during a recent conference and assured there would be neutrality in the rate. A conference on GST will be held soon, and thereafter the rate will be decided she further added.

Also Irani says the government has launched PowerTex India on April 1 for the benefit of powerloom industry. Stating the objective of this unique scheme with a component of an in-situ upgradation was to provide financial assistance to economically weaker low-end powerloom units to upgrade from plain to semi-automatic/shuttleless looms, as it can help them improve quality and productivity.

The budgetary allocation for the powerloom sector had gone up from Rs 52 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 110 crore in 2016-’17 and Rs 166 crores this fiscal. Irani also revealed that the ministry had come out with a yarn bank scheme at providing interest-free corpus fund and so 11 members can form a special purpose vehicle consortium for which the government would provide Rs 2 crore and a matching amount should be invested by the stakeholders and stock the yarn for use at the time of a crisis.