Textile industry has tough time availing of scheme benefit

Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 15

Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) was formed by the government to help the knitwear and textile industry in improving their technological skills. However, the industry is facing a lot of difficulties to avail of benefits under the Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS).

The Knitwear and Textile Club has written a letter to the Prime Minister in this regard. Vinod Thapar, president of Knitwear and Textile Club, has stated that the industry is facing issue regarding the timely sanction and release of the subsidy under the ATUFS.

“As per the existing ATUFS guidelines, issued by the Ministry of Textiles, timelines are given for each stage in processing of a unit’s claim for availing itself of benefits under the TUFS. It has been observed that the given timeline is only followed by applicant units whereas there is no timely compliance for the office of the Textile Commissioner, Mumbai. The office of the Textile Commissioner is not following the given timelines under the ATUFS. In some cases, it was observed that though inspection was conducted by the Joint Inspection Team (JIT) of the Textile Commissioner in 2016, subsidy has not been sanctioned till date,” he said.

He said other major problem is that under the ATUFS, the machinery manufacturers, who supply the machines to applicant textile units, have to be registered with office of the Textile Commissioner, Mumbai. “If the unit has purchased a machine from a non-registered supplier and applied for the subsidy under the ATUFS, that machine will not be eligible for the subsidy. But under the Revised Restructured TUFS, there was no such condition regarding the compulsory registration of the supplier,” he said.

Machine serial number causes troubles

Club General Secretary Charanjiv Singh said according to the ATUFS policy, the “machine serial number should be expressly written on the shipping documents — commercial invoice or bill of lading or the airways bill — or the same should expressly be written in the bill of entry in case of imported machinery.” In the case of domestic machinery, the machine serial number should be expressly mentioned in the commercial invoice. In the absence of such information, the machinery would have been ineligible for benefit under this scheme, he said.

Thapar added that they respected the ATUFS guidelines, however, they demanded that in the absence of machine serial number on commercial invoice/bill of lading or the airways bill/ bill of entry or any m/c related documents, the applicant unit should not be deprived of government benefits.

Mentioning machine serial number on machine-related documents is the complete responsibility of a supplier, not of the applicant unit. Since machines purchased from the registered supplier is eligible for subsidy as such at the time of registration, the supplier concerned should be clearly instructed by the office of the Textile Commissioner, Mumbai, to mention the machine serial number on all machine-related documents. Due to the ignorance of machine manufacturer/supplier, the applicant textile unit should not be deprived of the government subsidy. Moreover, it is informed that each machine has a serial number already on it and is physically verified by the JIT of the Textile Commissioner before releasing the subsidy, said club members.