Perfect Sourcing - August 2016

It has been more than a month since new Textile Minister has joined. Known for her aggressive nature Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani is already in the news mostly for her positive actions taken so far for the benefit of weavers and handloom industry. She successfully launched ‘I WEAR HANDLOOM’ campaign on social media and attracted a lot of positive comments. The industry, however, still awaits to see some immediate steps for the betterment of industry especially an action on the recently announced textile policy and allocation of Rs 6000 cr. Apart from this a lot is being heard and published in various newspapers, good or bad the textile and apparel industry is back in focus. The recent published news about AEPC is also doing the round and is facing a lot of criticism over monopoly of few members and corruption in the council. Textile minister Smriti Irani in fact has already given a go-ahead to supersede the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) and to appoint a government administrator to take over its management. According to a news report by the Indian Express keeping in view the large scale fraud of government grants by the Council, it has been decided that the government may appoint an ‘Administrator’ to take over the management of the Council so that its functioning may be streamlined to protect the public interest. Not only this, reports of tiff between Textile minister and textile secretary are also doing the rounds. The impact of the new Minister is yet to come in as far as development of the industry is concerned, however, her controversial image is enough to provide a lot of news material tor media and publishing houses in the coming times.