The Union Government today announced slew of measures to support various industries. These will also help the Indian textile and apparel sector.
The extension of the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) till 31 March 2021 and expanding the outstanding credit limit up to Rs. 500 crore for the stressed sectors with no turnover ceiling has brought cheers to the industry.
The Government also made a provision of Rs. 3,000 crore to EXIM Bank and for the Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana, which promises to bear both employee’ and employers’ EPFO contributions for new employees in firms with less than 1,000 employees and employee contribution in case of more than 1,000 employees.
The ECLGS provides 100 per cent guarantee coverage by National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC) to Member Lending Institutions (MLIs) on Guaranteed Emergency Credit Line (GECL) of up to Rs. 3 lakh crore to eligible MSMEs.
Reacting on this, Dr. A. Sakthivel, Chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), said “Both have been our demand and this is the comprehensive relief. This will go a long way in propping up many of the struggling industries.”
Industry strongly believes that extending ECLGS scheme with 100 per cent guaranteed collateral-free credit at capped interest rates to entities in the 26 stressed sectors including textiles with no upper ceiling on annual turnover will help medium-sized companies to utilise the opportunity in improving their business performance.
“ECLGS scheme helped MSMEs in resolving the liquidity issues and now with this announcement, other companies with large employment also will get the benefit. On the other side, to incentivise new employment, the new scheme of 24 per cent EPF contribution from Government to companies engaging up to 1,000 workers will help the maximum number of companies in textile and apparel sector,” said Prabhu Dhamodharan, Convenor, Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF).
