Knitwear units of Tiruppur, struggling because of a host of issues like Covid-19, non-availability of containers and ships to export the finished products and the economic slowdown have approached the Union Government with a request to hasten up the reimbursement of the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (ROSCTL) which would help them sail through the present crisis.
“The ROSCTL is popularly known as embedded taxes like cess on power, tariff on petro products and tax on transport which are offered back to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the form of scrips. We are free to sell it in market or pawn it as surety in banks and mobilize some funds for meeting our urgent financial commitments,” said S Sakthivel, executive secretary, Tiruppur Exporters Association, the umbrella organisation representing all knitwear units in Tiruppur.
Raja M Shanmugham, president, TEA, said that the knitwear exports sector in Thirupur, comprising 95 per cent of the units in MSME category has been impacted by the second wave of Covid-19 and was struggling to meet their statutory financial commitments in every month.
“The total readymade garment (woven and knitwear) exports from India between January 1, 2021 and 31st August 2021 was `75,250 crore and the ROSCTL pending claim to the garment sector was `3,750 crore. The Thiruppur units have to get `850 crore out of this amount,” said Sghanmugham.
The TEA president disclosed that he has written to M Ajit Kumar, chairman, Central Board of Indirect taxes and Customs seeking help to the TEA units to tide over the difficulties being experienced by the knitwear garment exporting units in the challenging global business environment.
Though faced by the a series of challenges, the TEA is working overtime to emerge as the fashion capital of India in manufacturing casual wears of global standards and had launched a massive skill development programme in association with union textile ministry.