The Modi government has completed two years at the Centre. In an exclusive interview with Uday India correspondent Preeti Thakur, Minister of State,( Independent Charge) for Textile, Santosh Gangwar lists achievements of his department. Excerpts:
Q.Modi government has completed two years in government. What are your achievements?
We have tried to create a different identity for ourselves. Before this government, nobody would care about the textile ministry as there was no such identity of the department. But after we came to power, we have worked hard for this department and gave a new direction to everything. Now, we can proudly say that whatever development works we undertook are now yielding results. For example, textile ministry’s main concern remains with cotton and today we are at No. 1 in cotton production. Every day we read about farmer suicides, but cotton producing farmers are not in the list. We have purchased cotton worth Rs 18,000 crore with MSP. We don’t have any cotton left in our godowns due to the excellent procurement mechanism we set up. We are going in the right direction.
Q.What are you doing for the growth of handloom sector?
Last year in Chennai, on August 7, Prime Minister declared it Handloom Day, so that handloom gets a new identity, a new brand. Accordingly, we have strived for managing the quality of handloom. Whatever quality of handloom get, we endeavour to give it a right shape. We have seen that there is rapid decrease in the numbers of weavers, so we are trying that the daily income of the weavers related to handloom should be minimum Rs 500 per day. We are getting successful in this and we are going in the right direction with all stakeholders.
Q.What are you doing for the growth of jute sector?
Here I would like to say that jute is an important factor for handloom and jute is produced generally in West Bengal and this time its production is very low. General perception about jute is that it is used for making bags only, but we are working on its diverse roles. We are joining hands with Tripura and other states so that jute gets its right dues and could be used in making not only bags but also other things. One of our ambitious projects is establishing textile parks. We are overseeing the development of 50 textile parks sanctioned in last 8-10 years. In the last two years of our government has sanctioned 24 more textile parks to be established. This is a big thing and we are striving hard to bring entrepreneurs to establish their business in these parks and generate employment. One important work , which had been pending for a very long time, was ISDS skill development. We are aiming for skill development of 15 lakh people and we are treading on the right path in this regard.
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