Textiles Ministry To Follow 'Challenge Method' To Select States For MITRA Scheme

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Textiles Ministry To Follow 'Challenge Method' To Select States For MITRA Scheme

The Textiles Ministry will follow a "challenge method" to select states for the proposed Mega Investment Textiles Parks (MITRA) scheme, under which seven parks will be set up in the country, a top government official has said. The scheme, which was announced in the Union Budget 2021-22, is at advanced stages of approval, Textiles Secretary U P Singh said. "We are expecting that in the next 15 days, we will get cabinet approval on the MITRA scheme," he informed. He said that there are more takers for the scheme as some states want two or three such parks and because of that "we will follow a challenge method to select states". Apart from 1,000 acre land for one such park, the ministry will look at some important things like nearby availability of raw material, all kinds of infrastructure including port, road and rail connectivity, water and power availability, and incentives of states among others. States will have to apply for the scheme and "we will float expression of interest (EoI) kind of thing. We will seek documents as per a format and then we will do evaluation," Singh said. He added that a portal will also be developed for the same. Textiles Minister Piyush Goyal had recently stated: "We need competition among states to capture business opportunities and we will see that competition in the MITRA scheme. We have to finalise 6-7 textile parks. States will have to commit for land, labour laws, infrastructure and power at attractive rates." The government has proposed the MITRA scheme to enable the textile industry to become globally competitive, attract large investments, boost employment generation and exports. Talking about the production linked (PLI) incentive scheme for the textiles sector, the secretary said by September-end, detailed guidelines will be issued for the scheme. "It is a fund limited scheme. We are expecting that more people will come forward for this and for that, we are putting certain criteria. There will be certain criteria for selection of companies, which would get the benefits of this scheme," Singh said. He said the companies that would invest in aspirational districts and tier 3/4 towns would get preference. Preference will also be given to the companies that will go to small cities, create more employment, and have better financial and technical capabilities, he added. "If we will get more applications in two months above Rs 10,683 crore, then we will select them based on this criteria," Singh said.