On 14 April, the Indian textiles and apparel industry got the sop that it had been anxiously waiting for a while. The government announced the selection of 61 applicants under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for textiles. The proposed total investment expected from the applicants was stated to be ₹19,077 crore and the projected turnover was ₹184,917 crore over a period of five years with a proposed direct employment of 240,134 people. Big numbers there.
The Scheme was meant for three categories: MMF apparel, MMF fabrics and products of technical textiles. Our interest area, for this article, is the first: apparel. Of late, India's readymade garment (RMG) exports numbers have looked up, but not that good. RMG exports for the financial year 2021–22 were worth $15,939.5 million. This was certainly better than 2020–21 ($12,285.8 million) or even 2019–20 when the pandemic hit exports in the March 2020 ($15,509.5 million), but these numbers were still lower than the last pre-pandemic financial year of 2018–19 ($16,156.1 million) and certainly much lower than the high of 2016–17 ($17,382.8 million), according to the Directorate-General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S).
The pandemic-hit Indian textiles and apparel industry had been clamouring for help in the face of a liquidity crunch, global downturn and supply chain bottlenecks—with the government finally approving the PLI Scheme with a budgetary outlay of ₹10,683 crore on 8 September 2021. The notification for the scheme was issued on 24 September. Operational guidelines were issued on 28 December, and applications received online from 1 January 2022 to 28 February.
Now, with relief albeit for only 61 players, Indian industry has to make up for lost time and drained revenues, if it has to go over the target that should have been over 2016–17. Everyone has a role to play in ramping up production and exports, especially the 61 selected which include big names like Pratibha Syntex Limited, Shahi Exports Private Limited, Trident Limited, Donear Industries Ltd, Gokaldas Exports Limited, KG Denim Limited and of course industry giant Arvind Limited.
The announcement certainly created a bit of a flutter, but in the din, the role that a small but crucial cog always plays in the turning of the textiles-apparel wheel got left out of most discussions: that of buying houses. Estimates vary, but there are roughly 1,000 buying houses in the country who, as it were, serve as a critical link in the value chain that makes or breaks India's RMG exports.