The Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SGCCI) has sought financial assistance of Rs 400 crores from the Ministry of Textiles for setting up a state-of-the-art textile processing cluster at Pinjrat village in Olpad taluka of Surat district. SGCCI office-bearers submitted a letter to textile commissioner Kavita Gupta demanding a financial assistance of Rs 400 crores for the proposed textile processing cluster to be developed on 50 lakh sq. mt. of land at Pinjrat. With the total project cost for the cluster is pegged at Rs 800 crores, the SGCCI wants 50 per cent of the grant from the central government and 25 per cent each from the state government and the industry.

The SGCCI and some textile processors in Pandesara and Sachin industrial estates have come up with this ambitious project that would house around 100 dyeing and printing mills with state-of-the-art technology at Pinjrat. A proposal for allotment of government land at Pinjrat is under consideration of the Gujarat government.

According to SGCCI president B S Agarwal, the ambitious project will boost manufacturing capacity and quality of textile processing sector in Surat. At present, only eight to 10 textile processing units manufacture finished fabrics as per the requirement of the garmenting sector while the rest lack technical know-how. The SGCI wants to set up a processing cluster having big units with hi-tech technology and up gradation.

There are around 400 textile processing centres in Surat and Palsana of which 5 per cent are manufacturing finished fabrics for the garmenting sector, the others are manufacturing fabrics like saris and dress materials, home textiles among others. Agarwal further said that the textile processing units will be connected with a common boiler system thereby discouraging the use of chimneys emitting pollution. There will be a set-up for wind power and solar power generation, common drainage, CETP plant, tertiary treatment plant and other state-of-the-art facilities.