Voicing serious concern over the exploitation of cotton growers, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Textile Industry on Monday strongly recommended that the government must direct the TCP to immediately start buying cotton from growers at the prescribed rates.
The committee also expressed strong reservations over the delay of release of funds by the Finance Division to the ministry and stated that it would hamper not only the implementation of Textiles Policy 2009-14, but also delay release of Rs 10.7 billion refunds to textile exporters withheld for last two years. The NA panel meeting held under the chairmanship of Haji Muhammad Akram Ansari asked the government to immediately direct TCP to procure 1 million cotton bales from farmers to arrest declining trend of cotton prices in the local market that touches Rs 2200 per bale.
The committee expressed anger over the continuous absence of Textile Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin and lack of his interest in the ministry affairs. It asked the minister to raise the issue in Wednesday's cabinet meeting. Committee member Abdul Rashid Godial while expressing displeasure over the non-payment of refunds of textile exporters said exporters don't need government assistance in upgradation of machinery. They only want their refunds. He said the ministry has demanded of the government to provide $200 million for implementation of projects under the Textile Policy.
The primary target of the Textile Policy was to double the rate from the present $1000 per bale to $2000 per bale over the next five years. The increased capacities required to generate the level of output were forecast to call for an additional investment of around $8 billion largely to be undertaken by the private sector. It was proposed that the government should invest about 25 percent of the total investment requirement over the next five years. This comes to $2.5 billion or around Rs 200 billion or Rs 40 billion annually.
The proposed specific areas that would receive government support from the fund mainly include modernisation of machinery and technology, removing infrastructural bottlenecks, enhancing skills, better marketing, use of information and communication technology, promoting standardisation throughout the chain, establishing a zero-rate export regime, tariff realisation, market access, setting up of export houses, support for women and handicapped employees and technical textiles.
The Secretary Textile told the committee that in 2009-10, the government released only Rs 9.7 billion of Rs 42 billion, while in 2010-11 Rs 7.5 billion was released of Rs 46 billion and in 2011-12 Rs 02 billion was released out of announced Rs 7.5 billion, whereas total budget was Rs 35 billion.
The committee also discussed the draft textile bill aimed at providing for the development, promotion, regulation and setting of standards for textiles industry in Pakistan to achieve sustainable growth, employment generation, increased productivity and value addition throughout the textiles chain and deferred it for the next meeting.