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K T. Rama Rao calls for strengthening handloom industry

On December 19, KTR had written a letter to Union Textile Minister Piyush Goyal, urging him to withdraw the plans of increasing GST from January 1, 2022…reports Asian Lite News.

Telangana’s Industry Minister K T. Rama Rao on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and save the weavers by withdrawing plans for increasing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on handloom and textiles.

The Minister reminded the Prime Minister of his call to strengthen the handloom sector on National Handloom Day.

Rama Rao said enhancing GST on handlooms and textiles will be a death knell for the industry.

Hon’ble @narendramodi Ji, on the national handloom day you had talked of strengthening #Vocal4Handmade

Contrary to the idea, your Govt has enhanced GST on Handlooms & Textiles from 5 to 12% which will be a death knell for the industry

Request you to intervene & save weavers pic.twitter.com/fOvT7YiLLM
— KTR (@KTRTRS) December 24, 2021

“Hon’ble @narendramodi Ji, on the National Handloom Day you had talked of strengthening #Vocal4Handmade. Contrary to the idea, your government has enhanced GST on handlooms and textiles from 5 to 12 per cent which will be a death knell for the industry. Request you to intervene and save weavers,” tweeted KTR, as the Minister is popularly known.

On December 19, KTR had written a letter to Union Textile Minister Piyush Goyal, urging him to withdraw the plans of increasing GST from January 1, 2022.

Stating that the textiles, especially handlooms sector was going through a tough phase for the past two years due to impact of Covid-19, KTR said, revising the GST from the current 5 to 12 per cent would serve as a death blow to the industry.

After the agriculture sector, textiles and handlooms sector provide the highest employment in the country. Considering the current scenario, the need of the hour was to extend additional advantages and incentives to the sector, he added.

KTR pointed out that never in the country’s history were taxes levied on handlooms and the Centre’s move to levy 5 per cent tax was strongly opposed by the textiles and handlooms sector across the country.

“The current decision to impose an additional seven per cent GST on the handlooms would leave the sector crippled. Telangana produces world-class handlooms and weavers are worried a lot due to the Centre’s decision to increase GST,” KTR wrote.

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Indian industries got 60% of total defence contracts: Govt

Defence Investor Cell (DIC) was created in February 2018 in the ministry to provide all necessary information, including addressing queries related to investment opportunities, procedures and regulatory requirements for investment in the sector…reports Asian Lite News.

Promoting Indian industries in defence sector, the Defence Ministry has given approximately 60 per cent of the total contracts for equipment to them, the Parliament was told on Monday.

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha member Prabhakar Reddy Vemireddy, Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt said that during the last five financial years — 2016-17 to 2020-21– and current financial year 2021-22 upto June 2021, a total of 264 contracts have been signed for capital procurement of defence equipment for the armed forces, and out of these, 159 contracts are with Indian vendors.

The minister also said that it has been decided to earmark an amount of Rs 71,438.36 crore for domestic capital procurement, out of the total allocation of Rs. 1,11,463.21 crore for capital acquisition for the current financial year, with the objective to boost capital procurements from domestic sources, including the private sector.

Bhatt also said that a Defence Investor Cell (DIC) was created in February 2018 in the ministry to provide all necessary information, including addressing queries related to investment opportunities, procedures and regulatory requirements for investment in the sector.

“So far, 1,182 queries have been addressed by DIC,” he said.

He said that the government has taken several policy initiatives and brought reforms to promote self-reliance in defence manufacturing. “These policy initiatives are aimed at encouraging indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence equipment in the country, thereby reducing dependency on imports in long run,” he said.

The minister also pointed that the DPP-2016 has been revised as the Defence Acquisition Procedure-2020, which is driven by the tenets of defence reforms announced as part of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’.

In order to promote indigenous design and development of defence equipment ‘Buy {Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)}’ category has been accorded top most priority for procurement of capital equipment, he added.

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