The Tirupur Exporters and Manufacturers’ Association (TEAMA) has put in place an action plan to train a workforce of 7,000 for the 36 factories to come up in the proposed textile park at Vedaranyam in Nagapattinam District.
More skill training centres have been planned to be started to create a huge workforce before the Veda Textile Park at Ayyakaranpulam takes shape. The park, comprising 34 readymade garment and two knitwear units, is to be constructed at Rs. 96.86 cr. The Centre will offer a subsidy of Rs. 37.8 cr and the State Government Rs. 23.62 cr. The Union Textiles Ministry is expected to accord its formal sanction of its share of the total project cost during this week.
The project envisages 24 percent contribution by the State Government and the rest by the Special Purpose Vehicle formed by the 36 entrepreneurs, N. Murali, Vice-President of TEAMA, said. The wet-processing will be carried out at Tirupur and rest of the process till manufacture of the end product will take place in Vedaranyam, he said.
Formation of such clusters has been necessitated by shortage of labour in Tirupur. After a large segment of the north Indian workforce in Tirupur migrated to their respective States during the COVID 19 lockdown, a number of units were facing the problem of scaled-down production and productivity issues.
Abundance of work force in places such as Vedaraynam will enable the Tirupur industries to stand up to the competition from Bangladesh and Vietnam in the export market, he said.
A major hub of knitwear exports in India, Tirupur accounts for contributing 45 percent of exports, of which, more than 90 percent are cotton based garments. The competitive advantage of Bangladesh textile sector is only marginal and acceleration of production and productivity through such clusters formed under SITP will stand the Tirupur hub in good stead to emerge stronger, he said.
