By IANS,
New Delhi: India’s textile industry was hit hard by the global slowdown last year, with the handloom and powerloom production declining 3.8 and 3.2 percent respectively, a union minister said Wednesday.
According to the provisional data available, production in the handloom sector in 2008-09 stood at 6,677 million square metres, as compared to 6,947 million square metres the year before, Minister of State for Textiles Panabaaka Lakshmi told the Rajya Sabha.
However, the production in mills increased a meagre 0.8 percent from 1,781 million square metres to 1,796 million square metres. Also, the hosiery sector witnessed an increase of 2.3 percent in its annual production.
The government has undertaken various schemes to support the crisis-hit textile industry, the minister said.
Some of them are: integrated handloom development scheme, marketing and export promotion scheme, handloom weavers comprehensive welfare scheme and technology upgradation fund scheme and many more.