The Indian textile industry is one of the oldest and largest in the world, with decentralized power looms and hosiery forming the largest sector. It has strong linkages to agriculture through cotton and a variety of regional traditions. The industry produces a wide range of products for domestic and international markets and provides employment for over 35 million people. While the organized mill sector represents spinning and composite mills, the decentralized sector focuses on weaving and is dependent on mills for yarn. The future of the industry looks promising due to rising domestic consumption and export demand.

1. Textile Industry

2. Introduction
India’s textiles sector is one of the oldest industries in the Indian
economy, dating back to several centuries.
The industry is extremely varied, with hand-spun and hand-woven
textiles sectors at one end of the spectrum, while the capital-intensive
sophisticated mills sector on the other end. The decentralised power
looms/ hosiery and knitting sector forms the largest component in
the textiles sector.
The close linkage of textiles industry to agriculture (for raw materials
such as cotton) and the ancient culture and traditions of the country
in terms of textiles makes it unique in comparison to other industries
in the country.
India’s textiles industry has a capacity to produce wide variety of
products suitable for different market segments, both within India
and across the world.

3. ⚫ The decentralized power looms/ hosiery and knitting sector form the
largest component of the textiles sector.
⚫ The close linkage of the textile industry to agriculture (for raw
materials such as cotton) and the ancient culture and traditions of the
country in terms of textiles make the Indian textiles sector unique in
comparison to the industries of other countries.
⚫ The Indian textile industry has the capacity to produce a wide variety
of products suitable to different market segments, both within India
and across the world.
⚫ offers direct employment to over 35 million in the country.
⚫ The first modem cotton textile mill-Fort Glaster near Kolkata(1818)

4. EVOLUTION OF THE INDIAN TEXTILE SECTOR

6. ⚫The organized sector of the textile industry
represents the mills.
⚫It could be a spinning mill or a composite mill.
⚫Composite mill is one where the spinning, weaving
and processing facilities are carried out under one
roof.
⚫The decentralized sector is engaged mainly in the
weaving activity, which makes it heavily dependent
on the organized sector for their yarn requirements.
⚫ This decentralized sector is comprised of the three
major segments viz., powerloom, handloom and
hosiery. In addition to the above, there are
readymade garments, khadi as well as carpet
manufacturing units in the decentralized sector.

7. Current Scenario
⚫India is first in global jute production and shares 63% of
the global textile and garment market.
⚫India is second in global textile manufacturing and also
second in silk and cotton production.
⚫100% FDI is allowed via automatic route in textile sector.
⚫Benetton and Levi’s are some of the foreign textile
companies invested or working in India.

8. Current Scenario
⚫Textile Industry contributes around 4% of GDP,
⚫18% of employment in industrial sector
⚫13 % share in the country’s export.
⚫Importing countries are Japan, US, UK, Russia,
France, Nepal Sri Lanka.
⚫India is the largest exporter of yarn in the
international market and has a share of 25% in world
cotton yarn export market.
⚫India contributes for 12% of the world’s production of
textile fibers and yarn.

10. Market Size
⚫India’s textiles industry contributed 7% to the industry output
(by value) in 2018-19. The Indian textiles and apparel industry
contributed 2% to the GDP, 12% to export earnings and held 5%
of the global trade in textiles and apparel in 2018-19.
⚫The share of the India’s textiles and apparel exports in
mercantile shipments was 11% in 2019-20.
⚫Textiles industry has around 4.5 crore employed workers
including 35.22 lakh handloom workers across the country.
⚫Cotton production is expected to reach 37.10 million bales and
consumption is expected to reach 114 million bales in FY21—13%
growth over the previous year.

11. Handloom Exports
● The export of handloom products from India was valued at US$ 343.69 million in FY19.
In FY20, the export stood at US$ 319.02 million.
● The handloom products export between from April 2020 to March 2021 was US$
223.19 million and for the month of March 2021 it was US$ 23.43 million.
● The other woven fabrics of handloom export was US$ 7.55 million between April 2020
and February 2021.
● In FY21, the US was the major importer of Indian handloom products, with an
estimated purchase of US$ 83.11 million, followed by the UK, Australia, Germany, and
France at US$ 18.99 million, US$ 10.7 million, US$ 9.94 million and US$ 9.73 million
respectively.
● Nearly 15% of cloth production in India is from the handloom sector.
● Cloth production in 2019-20 (till January 2020) stood at 63,348 square meters.
● Production of hand-woven fabric from India constitute 95% of the global

12. Textiles
⚫ Man Made Fibres: This includes manufacturing of clothes using fibre
or filament synthetic yarns. It is produced in the large power loom
factories. They account for the largest sector of the textile production
in India. This sector has a share of 62% of the India's total production
and provides employment to about 4.8 million people.
⚫ The Cotton Sector: It is the second most developed sector in the
Indian Textile industries. It provides employment to huge amount of
people but its productions and employment is seasonal depending
upon the seasonal nature of the production.
⚫ The Handloom Sector: It is well developed and is mainly dependent
on the Self Help Groups for their funds. Its market share is 13%. of the
total cloth produced in India.

13. ⚫ The Woolen Sector: India is the 7th largest producer of the
wool in the world. India also produces 1.8% of the world's total
wool.
⚫ The Jute Sector: The jute or the golden fibre in India is mainly
produced in the Eastern states of India like Assam and West
Bengal. India is the largest producer of jute in the world.
⚫ The Sericulture and Silk Sector: India is the 2nd largest
producer of silk in the world. India produces 18% of the world's
total silk. Mulberry, Eri, Tasar, and Muga are the main types of
silk produced in the country. It is a labour-intensive sector.

14. Importance of Cotton Industry
⚫Cotton is grown in our country over an area of about eight
million hectares and average production during the last
few seasons had been around eighty seven lakh bales.
⚫At present the industry provides direct employment to
nearly fifteen lakh workers.
⚫It also provides indirect employment to many millions
like the cotton growers, processors, handloom and
power-loom weavers who alone are estimated over three
million and innumerable cloth dealers and shopkeepers.

15. Importance of Cotton Industry
⚫With an annual growth of 2.5 per cent in population
the domestic demand for textiles is rising.
⚫The industry contributes in ever increasing measures
to the Central and State Governments by way of
taxes and duties.
⚫A large domestic market and plentiful supply of
domestic cotton were the two basic factors
responsible for the growth and development of
cotton textiles into a major key industry

16. Location:
⚫Minister of Textiles disclosed that there are 1399
operational, non-small scale industry (Non-SSI) textile
mills in the country
⚫Though cotton textile industry being the largest
industry in India has spread practically over all parts of
the country, it is mostly localised in the states of
Maharashtra and Gujarat. But the share is now
declining.
⚫Tamil Nadu holds the largest number of operational
textile mills – 752.

17. Reasons for this location are:
(i) Availability of raw material both in good qualities and
quantities;
(ii) Cheap and developed transport facilities including ports
like Bombay and Kandla;
(iii) Availability of commercial and financial facilities like
export and import houses and banking institutions;
(iv) Suitable climate and
v) Enterprising capital. In recent years, the cotton textile
industry has also spread to a number of other states like
Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu and Uttar Pradesh

18. Problems of Cotton Textile Industry in India:
(a) Obsolete machineries,
(b) Problems of modernisation,
(c) Lack of raw materials,
(d) Non-utilisation of production capacities,
(e) Lack of power supply,
(f) Increasing Government control and heavy excise duties,
(g) Higher unit cost of production,
(h) Inefficient and uneconomic units of production,
(i) Increasing labour problems,
(j) Increasing competition in foreign market,
(k) Shortage of finance and
(l) Growing sickness among the textile industrial units.

19. Remedial Measures for Solving the Problem of Cotton
Textile Industry:
(a) Increasing financial assistance for its modernisation,
(b) Reduction of import duties on the import of textile
machineries,
(c) Reduction of excise duties on improved yarn,
(d) Setting up National Textile Corporation (NTC) to run
the sick units,
(e) Introduction of new Textile Policy in 1985 for the
modernisation and expansion of this industry.
In recent years,’ several policy measures have been
adopted to improve the health of cotton textile industry

20. These measures are as follows:
⚫ Textile Modernization Fund, set up in 1986 with a corpus of Rs 750 crores, has
received an overwhelming response from the mills. Till the end of September 1992
financial institutions had sanctioned loans amounting to Rs 1,368 crore for 357
cases while disbursements aggregated to Rs 858 crores.
⚫ A turnaround strategy for the sick mills of NTC and BIC has been evolved by the
Government. The package includes providing working capital finance to tide over
the liquidity problems, capacity modernisation and shedding of surplus labour
through a voluntary retirement scheme which will be handled through the
recently established National Renewal Fund (NRF).
⚫ Other programmes relate to technological upgradation of the handloom sector,
Power loom cooperative societies are being encouraged to upgrade capacities in
this sector. It is expected that these policy measures will further encourage
upgradation of capacities and a higher export orientation to the industry.

21. ⚫In line with the general policy of liberalisation, several
measures have been undertaken to eliminate or
reduce controls and bring about greater
transparency in the textile sector. The textile
industry has been de-licensed as per the Textiles
(Development and Regulation) Order 1993.

22. The New Textile Policy:
⚫The new National Textiles Policy draft in process aims to
achieve $300 billion exports by 2024-25, and creation of
additional 35 million jobs by attracting investments.
⚫ The blueprint termed as the draft 'Vision, Strategy and
Action Plan' to revitalize the textiles and apparel industry
envisages an additional investment of $120 billion.
⚫ The key objectives of the new National Textiles Policy
include developing a vision statement of the textile sector
for the next decade to treble market share from the
current 5 per cent in the next decade.

23. Investment
⚫The textiles sector has witnessed a spurt in investment
during the last five years. The industry (including dyed
and printed) attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
worth US$ 2.97 billion during April 2000 to June 2018.
Some of the major investments in the Indian textiles
industry are as follows:
⚫ The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), Government of
India has approved a new skill development scheme named 'Scheme
for Capacity Building in Textile Sector (SCBTS)' with an outlay of Rs
1,300 crore (US$ 202.9 million) from 2017-18 to 2019-20.
⚫ In May 2018, textiles sector recorded investments worth Rs 27,000
crore (US$ 4.19 billion) since June 2017.

24. Government Initiatives
⚫The Indian government has come up with a number of export
promotion policies for the textiles sector. It has also allowed
100 per cent FDI in the Indian textiles sector under the
automatic route.
⚫Initiatives taken by Government of India are:
⚫The Textile Ministry of India earmarked Rs 690 crore (US$
106.58 million) for setting up 21 ready made garment
manufacturing units in seven states for development and
modernisation of Indian Textile Sector.
⚫The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has revised
rates for incentives under the Merchandise Exports from India
Scheme (MEIS) for two subsectors of Textiles Industry -
Readymade garments and Made ups - from 2 per cent to 4 per
cent.

25. ⚫As of August 2018, the Government of India has increased
the basic custom duty to 20 per cent from 10 per cent
on 501 textile products, to boost Make in India and
indigenous production.
⚫The Government of India announced a Special Package to
boost exports by US$ 31 billion, create one crore job
opportunity and attract investments worth Rs 80,000
crore (US$ 11.93 billion) during 2018-2020.
⚫As of August 2018 it generated additional investments
worth Rs 25,345 crore (US$ 3.78 billion) and exports worth
Rs 57.28 billion (US$ 854.42 million).
⚫The Government of India has taken several measures
including Amended Technology Up-gradation Fund
Scheme (A-TUFS), scheme is estimated to create
employment for 35 lakh people and enable investments
worth Rs 95,000 crore (US$ 14.17 billion) by 2022.

26. Road Ahead
⚫The future for the Indian textile industry looks promising,
buoyed by both strong domestic consumption as well as
export demand.
⚫With consumerism and disposable income on the rise, the
retail sector has experienced a rapid growth in the past
decade with the entry of several international players like
Marks & Spencer, Guess and Next into the Indian market.
⚫High economic growth has resulted in higher disposable
income. This has led to rise in demand for products
creating a huge domestic market.