The Textiles Minister on Thursday met heads of nationalised banks and asked them to improve the flow of credit to the industry, including the handloom segment.
Textiles Minister K Sambasiva Rao also expressed concern over delays in submitting subsidy claims as well as the partial submission of claims for the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) by the lending agencies.
After consulting stakeholders of the industry, the minister is of the view that exports can be doubled and called upon the banks to liberally fund investments in the sector, an official release said. Recently, at the meeting of a high-level committee on manufacturing chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a road map of measures was laid out to raise textile exports by 30 per cent, besides increasing steel output capacity to 300 million tonnes to tackle the plummeting rupee.
During 2012-13, textile exports stood at $34 billion. To ensure the availability of subsidised credit to handloom weavers, the release quoting Rao said, “I had a meeting with chief executive officers of nationalised banks to review the progress of issuance of weaver's credit card and to sensitise them to the credit needs of weavers.”