According to Raja Shanmugham, President, Tirupur Exporters Association, we need to upscale skill inventory across our value chain as global competition is increasing. Agreements between nations are compelling each of them to open their markets for others. One such agreement, the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) enables countries to enter Indian shores and capture a share of its market. “As this inflow of companies is higher than supply, we need to create separate boards to ensure their connectivity to the main center". Regretfully in India still British legacy perennially lives and we somewhere collectively need to put our heads together to assess realistically the ground reality of the day. I have a strong sense that the system needs a fundamental shift in our macro view & approach to fruition; For instance, we need to set up a board in knitwear at Tirupur; in Karur for handlooms and made-ups while Mumbai needs to have a board for woven garments, Surat can have it for Synthetic fabrics & so and so forth to have a better handle of the micro assessment resulting in emergence of international level envious sourcing hubs & centers. This visibly will make it easier for us to achieve the $350 billion target envisaged by the Government of the day,” notes Shanmugham.
It will also enable each of these streams to perform to the best of their capacities. Currently, only liaison work is happening which creates a lopsided rather than holistic development. “It also reduces our manpower deployment and undermines cotton capacity optimization. Thus we get beaten by competing countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia etc. despite of India being complete supply chain country,” adds Shanmugham
Shanmugham views that to prevent this, we need to introduce policies that consider not just corporates but also MSMEs, as per him, "Indian entrepreneurial fabric is woven by MSMEs which contribute bulk of the exports Forex earning particularly when it comes to labour intensive industry like T & C". “MSMEs need to be given an opportunity to unleash their vibrancy. We also need more structural reforms. However, if coronavirus continues, there may be a transfer of orders and we can be one of the beneficiaries. How efficiently we do that remains to be seen however, still for mid to long-term health of the industry structural reforms..structural reforms..structural reforms is the only credible answer,” he further states.
