India is negotiating a broad based Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (India-EU BTIA) with the European Union. The negotiations started in 2007 and 16 rounds of negotiations have been held so far, however, there has been no agreement on it. Ministry of textiles is in constant touch with Ministry of commerce & industry in this regard.
Ajay Tamta, Minister of State, Textiles, informed about the trade agreement in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question. In another reply, he said, “The Ministry of textiles is implementing Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS) with effect from January 13, 2016, for a period of seven years. Under ATUFS, there is a provision of one-time capital subsidy for eligible benchmarked machinery at the rate of 15 per cent for garmenting and technical textiles segments with a cap of Rs. 30 cr and at the rate of 10 per cent for weaving, processing, jute, silk and handloom segments with a cap of Rs. 20 cr.”
An outlay of Rs. 17,822 cr has been approved for 7 years to meet the committed liabilities of Rs. 12,671 cr and Rs. 5,151 cr for new cases under ATUFS. While ATUFS covers Capital Investment Subsidy (CIS), earlier schemes of TUFS had provisions both for interest reimbursement as well as Capital Subsidy,” he added. ATUFS is targeted towards focused segments like garmenting and made-ups with additional 10 per cent subsidy. The segments which have achieved desired level of modernisation, i.e. spinning etc., have been excluded under ATUFS. So far 2,036 UIDs have been issued under ATUFS with expected employment generation of 45,659 against investments reported of RS. 5,225.86 cr.
