‘Good for farmers, MSMEs’: Textile industry hails budget

He further added, “In the Finance Minister’s announcement, the basic custom duty on knitted fabric will be 20% or Rs 115 per kg, whichever is higher. This provision will directly benefit the industrialists producing knitted fabric on shuttle lace looms in South Gujarat, including Surat. After Ludhiana, Surat is the centre of knitted fabric production in India. So, the announcement of the finance minister has given relief to the industrialists in the knitting business.”

SGCCI Vice President Nikhil Madrasi said, “There is universal joy as the age-old demand of individual taxpayers has been accepted. Due to this revision in tax slabs, people will now be motivated to pay taxes…The country’s economy will benefit in an overall way…”

Pointing out that no special provision was made for the diamond industry, he said, “The diamond industry was optimistic that the import duty on rough diamonds would be reduced… However, the footwear and leather sector, the toy sector and the food processing industry will benefit a lot due to the announcement of the establishment of the National Institute of Food Technology in Bihar.”

Federation of Surat Textile Traders’ Association Kailash Hakim said, “We are representing over 70,000 textile traders of Surat. We had submitted a proposal of 10 points, out of which two were selected and announced by the Union FM on Saturday. Earlier, TCS (tax collected at source) deduction was applicable on sales bills, due to which traders had to bear an additional tax burden. The decision to abolish this deduction is welcome and will provide great relief. The turnover limit of small enterprises of MSME has been increased from Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore. This will bring most of the textile traders of Surat under this category and they will get an easy loan facility under MSME.”

Former president of SGCCI and powerloom industry leader Ashish Gujarati hailed the “consumption-driven budget with higher (amount of) money in the hands of the middle class.” He said, “This would mean more buying of apparels and home textiles. Textiles are predominantly in the MSME segment and with many women entrepreneurs in the business, all schemes for their benefits would directly impact textile manufacturing.”