Reeling under losses amid nationwide lockdown due to Covid-19 outbreak and economic slowdown, Punjab’s textile industry has urged the State government to lend a helping hand to mitigate the problems of the industry.
Amritsar Textile Processor Association (ATPA) has written to State Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora and pointed out that amid the economic slowdown and the lockdown the industry is unable to meet its expenses, including interest cost on term loan and working capital, instalments of term loan, statutory taxes, dilution in value of stock due to seasonal fashion trends, revenue losses due to low demand in export as well as domestic market and salaries..
“Banks should should be asked to defer all instalments of loans for six months till 30.09.2020. MSMEs may be allowed to repay these six instalments without interest over a period of 12 months. Also, there should not be compulsion for payment of full salary-wages to employees from the employer for lockdown period,” said Krishan Kumar Sharma, president ATPA.
Mr. Kumar said the association has also demanded the government not to impose anti-dumping duty on textile basic raw materials for a period of two year. “This is needed so that the user industry can avail the advantage of international decline in rates of key textile raw materials to be able to remain competitive,” he said.
The textile processing units, which prepare dye and print fabrics are considered to be the backbone of nearly 700-800 textile factories that are involved in warp-knitting, woollen, embroidery, spinning and weaving. The closure of these processing units is apparently having a cascading affect on the textile business.
