COIMBATORE: The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has urged the state government to re-examine the policies related to the textile industry.

“It has become imperative to strengthen measures to sustain the competitiveness of the textile industry. The government should have a re-look at the prevailing energy policy, especially the annual banking facility extended to wind mills and network charges levied for roof top solar panels,” said SK Sundararaman, chairman of SIMA in a statement.

Urging Chief Minister MK Stalin to implement annual banking facility to windmills of 20 to 25-years-old and keep the repowering policy in abeyance under the current scenario, SIMA has sought to make repowering policy optional in due course, considering the numerous challenges and need to sustain competitiveness of captive consumers of wind power.

Textile sector was attracting over 60 per cent of investments till 2007 mainly due to power cost advantage. “But the industry started to lose competitiveness from 2008 due to acute power shortage and steep increase in transport cost in sourcing raw materials from states like Gujarat and Maharashtra. Unless appropriate policies are announced or atleast the power tariff is rolled back to the level that existed prior to recent tariff revision, most of the textile mills in Tamil Nadu will be closed in a few years,” said SK Sundararaman.

Factors like non-availability of quality cotton, 11 per cent import duty on cotton and high volatility in cotton price during the last two years have forced the textile manufacturers to cut down production rates significantly and has eroded global competitiveness of the spinning segment.