Power Tex, a ray of hope for waning handloom industry

​Sircilla: The Power Tex India, a comprehensive scheme of the Central government for powerloom sector development, could well be a ray of hope for those depended on volatile handloom industry in Sircilla.

To help the economically weaker powerloom weavers and for the overall development of the powerloom sector, the Centre launched the scheme that is hugely beneficial to the decentralised powerloom sector recently. The scheme was extended to the 12th five-year plan with additional components of Yarn Bank, Tex-Venture Fund and Common Facility Centre.

Sircilla is one among the nine cities in the country selected under the scheme, thanks to State government’s efforts to bring Sircilla under the umbrella of the scheme. Incidentally, Sircilla is the only one that figured in the list of cities got selected under the scheme from two Telugu-speaking States - Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The other cities are.. Malegaon, Ichalkaranji, Kolhapur, Surat, Erode, Bengaluru, Bagalpur and Varanasi.

The components of the scheme: In-situ Upgradation of Plain Powerlooms, Group Workshed Scheme (GWS), Yarn Bank Scheme, Common Facility Centre (CFC), Pradhan Mantri Credit Scheme for Powerloom Weavers, Solar Energy Scheme for Powerlooms, Facilitation, IT, Awareness, Market Development & Publicity for Powerloom Schemes, Tex Venture Capital Fund, and Grant-in-Aid and Modernisation & Upgradation of Powerloom Service Centres (PSCs).

Initially, the district administration has decided to focus on the Group Workshed and In-situ Upgradation of Plain Powerlooms schemes. As part of it, the administration will create awareness about the ‘Power Tex India’ scheme among the owners of powerloom units.

“The State government worked its way in getting Sircilla included in the ambit of the Centre’s scheme. It’s a great opportunity for the local powerloom industry. The government will provide financial assistance to economically weaker low-end powerloom units, for upgrading existing plain looms to semi-automatic/shuttleless looms,” Karimnagar MP B Vinod Kumar said.

District Collector Krishna Bhaskar said: “The Group Workshed Scheme (GWS) comes in handy for the powerloom owners to organise their units in a cluster and to provide improved working condition in terms of more space, work environment, improve the work efficiency to enhance their competitiveness in the global market.”

It is learnt that under the In-situ upgradation scheme, the quantum of subsidy per loom is 50 per cent and for SC and STs, it is 75 and 90 per cent. Under GWS, the eligible subsidy on the unit cost of construction is 40 per cent with a cap of Rs 400 per square foot. For SC and STs, the subsidy is 75 and 90 per cent with a cap of Rs 750 and Rs 900 respectively.