Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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Ministry of Information & Broadcasting
Ambika Soni condoles demise of Prabhash Joshi
New Delhi: November 6, 2009
The Minister for Information and Broadcasting Smt Ambika Soni has expressed grief on demise of veteran journalist Shri Prabhash Joshi. Smt Soni recalled Shri Prabhash Joshi's immense contribution to the world of Hindi journalism and his role as the founder editor of Hindi daily Jansatta in 1983. "The journalistic fraternity has lost a multi-faceted personality in the demise of Shri Joshi", Smt Ambika Soni added, recounting Shri Joshi's career as a noted columnist, political analyst and a popular television commentator in his later years.
The Minister has conveyed her condolences to the bereaved family.
sbs/rs/dk/kol/13:11 hrs.
Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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Ministry of Textiles
66,275 Crore disbursed for Upgradation of Technology in Textiles Sector
STIMULATED ADDITIONAL INVESTMENTS OF RS.1,79,834 CRORE
MODERNISED NTC MILLS AT MUMBAI AND KERALA TO BE INAUGURATED
CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE OF TEXTILES MINISTRY MEETS
New Delhi: November 6, 2009
The Ministry of Textiles has disbursed Rs. 66,275 crore under the Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (TUFS) from the inception of the Scheme on April 01, 1999, till June 30, 2009. This was stated by Thiru. Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister of Textiles, while addressing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of his Ministry here late evening yesterday.
Thiru. Maran said that the TUFS has stimulated additional investments of Rs.1,79,834 crore; benefited 25,809 textiles units, including 18,266 small scale units. The Scheme had enabled the textiles industry to successfully face challenges of global competition;. reduced the cost of capital for acquisition of the state- of- the- art technology by 5%; ignited growth of processing, garmenting and technical textiles sectors by extending 10% capital subsidy; assisted the powerloom units by extending 20% margin money subsidy and empowered the small scale sector with 15% capital subsidy. "The entire textiles value chain from cotton ginning and pressing till the clothing / made-up stage has availed of benefit under TUFS and the composite upgradation, spinning, processing and weaving segments of textiles chain are the major beneficiaries of TUFS", Thiru. Maran said.
The Textiles Minister further informed the Members of the Committee that the States of Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are the major beneficiaries of the Scheme, because these States have potential textiles growth centres where textiles related activities have been carried out historically. The popularity of the Scheme can be assessed from the fact that the allocation on account of interest support has been increasing and it was Rs. 485 crore in 2005-06, Rs. 824 crore in 2006-07, and Rs. 945 crore in 2007-08, which was subsequently increased to Rs. 1,198 crore at R.E. stage. Rs. 1,090 crore was provided for 2008-09, Thiru. Maran added..
Thiru Maran said the Ministry had made a provision of Rs. 2,890 crore and released subsidy of Rs 2,546 crore under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) on August 06, 2009. "This is for the first time that such a large amount of subsidy has been released in a single tranche and the amount was credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries in the record time of 72 hours (3 working days). To clear the subsidy till December 2009, we will be requiring additional amount of Rs. 1,884 crore at RE stage 2009-10", said the Minister.
Giving an overview of the working of the National Textile Corporation (NTC) ,Thiru Maran said that with the help of active support of the Government, the NTC has come out of the red and has drawn a plan to achieve a turnover of Rs 2014 crore by 2014 from the current level of Rs 524 crore during 2008-09 . The revival and modernization of NTC mill has been due to Rs. 5,267 crore modified revival Scheme, which was approved by BIFR in 2006-07. The Scheme envisages revival of 43 mills, of which 24 mills are being modernized by NTC itself and 19 mills are being modernized through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. NTC has completed modernization of 17 mills, and the modernization of 18th mill, i.e., Cannanore Spg & Wvg mills, Kannur, Kerala will be completed soon. The company is engaged in the bringing in three Greenfield Composite Mills one each in the States of Karnataka , Maharashtra and Gujarat. NTC has so far spent Rs 663 crore towards modernisation,said the Textiles Minister.
The Textiles Ministry will make all out efforts to turn NTC into a profitable enterprise by means of enhanced capacity utilization (upto 80%), reduction of idle wages and launching of aggressive marketing initiatives, and turning the Corporation from spinning company into an integrated textiles company with spinning, weaving, processing and garmenting facilities, informed Thiru. Maran.
Thiru. Maran said that recently four modernized textiles mills of National Textile Corporation at Coimbatore have been inaugurated and in coming days three modernized mills of NTC at Mumbai and 4 mills in Kerala at Trissur, Thiruvanthapuram and Kannur will be inaugurated. The Corporation is also focusing on downward linkages and re-energizing its 93 retail outlets and making efforts to capture institutional sales to achieve the status of nation's clothier and provide on opportunity to consumer to identify with its products, said Thiru. Maran.
The Minister said that Textiles Ministry has taken initiatives for promoting Technical Textiles, and keeping in view vast scope of growth in Technical Textiles. NTC had been asked to exploit the opportunities in this area. NTC is going to set up a Technical Textiles unit in its existing mills at Coimbatore, informed Thiru. Maran.
Preceding the discussion, the officers made presentation giving an overview of the TUFS and Working of NTC. Participating in the discussion, the Members suggested that subsidy component under TUFS be increased and be expanded to include more textiles activities. They also suggested that to increase exports more concessions DDB rates may be provided to textiles exporters, and more textiles parks should be set up in traditional textiles centres and government should explore the possibility to fund effluent treatment plants in processing centres.
The meeting was attended by the following members of the Committee : Shri. C. Siyasami Shri. P.Lingam , Shri. Ramesh V. Katti and Shri.P.Vishwanathan from Lok Sabha and Shri S.Anbalagan, Shri.Kanjibhai Patel and Shri.Moinul Hassan from Rajya Sabha. Smt Panabaka Lakshmi , Minister of State for Textiles also addressed the Members. Secretary Textiles, CMD , NTC and Senior Officers of the Textiles Ministry attended the meeting.
rm/as/dk/kol/13:12 hrs.
Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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Ministry of Food Processing Industries
Meat and Poultry Sector in India
New Delhi: November 6, 2009
The Meat and Poultry Sector in India
The meat industry is the collective of diverse businesses that together supply much of the food energy consumed by the world population. Food processing industry is widely recognized as a 'sunrise industry' having huge potential for uplifting agricultural economy, creation of large scale processed food manufacturing and food chain facilities, and the resultant generation of employment and export earnings. India has enormous growth potential from its current status of being the world's second largest food producer to be the world's number one producer.
Challenges and Gaps in Indian Meat Industry
Though fast growing, yet the level of processing in the meat industry is still lower as compared to other countries. The key challenges include organization of meat sector in terms of meeting global quality standards, regulatory bottlenecks and higher no. of unorganized market players. Establishing Disease-Free Zones for rearing animals is another area of concern.
Growth Potential/ Opportunities
India is blessed with rich livestock wealth and recognized as one of the most important livestock rearing country in the world with the largest livestock population of 449 million. Animal husbandry has been an integral part of rural livelihood and buffalo as a triple purpose animal (Milk, Meat & Draught) has imbibed well in the Indian rural hinterland. As per the last census held, the country has about 200 million cattle, 79 million buffaloes, 46 million sheep, 110 million goats and 10 million pigs. Indian Meat Sector with such vast raw material base, increasing domestic demand and high potential of export is expected to grow significantly. Despite this, India has not been able to position itself as a major player in global trade for a variety of reasons including lack of appropriate support infrastructure for processing, vegetarianism, religious reservations, regional preferences and preference for fresh and hot meat etc.
Poultry meat is the fastest growing segment in domestic market with a CAGR of about 15 percent. However, Buffalo meat production has been growing at a relatively less rate at a CAGR of about 5 percent. The current production levels is estimated at about 1.9 Million tones of which about 21 percent is exported to counties like Malaysia, Egypt and in Middle east region. Mutton and lamb is a smaller segment where demand has been outstripping supply, which also explains their higher retail prices in Indian domestic market. Only 24% is exported. Meat is primarily exported to the Philippines, Malaysia, West Asian countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman etc., African and CIS countries.
The Way Ahead
After the challenges and gaps are known, there is the time to mend them and tackle the issues. There needs to be an integrated view of development of meat sector workers. Efforts and support by government to Indian players to meet global quality standards and hygienic and scientific slaughtering in addition to the optimum utilization of by products is very much essential.
In this regard, in order to synergize the energies and efforts of every one related to the growth and development of meat and poultry processing in the country, the Ministry of Food processing Industries had formed a National Meat and Poultry Processing Board (NMPPB) as an autonomous body under the societies act and is functioning under the Ministry of Food Processing Industries. The NMPPB aims at boosting the growth of the sector for the benefit of the producers and processors. The Board will provide help to the industry in setting up or modernization of abattoirs by providing technical consultancy for the production of wholesome meat and meat products, value added meat food products and utilization of slaughterhouse by products.
Immediate needs of the sector are to take advantage of liberalized world trade to benefit the Indian meat industry by harmonization of standards, giving incentives to farmer for quality livestock production and to adopt stringent quality control measures, to develop long term strategies for export, popularize and develop traditional products technology, and regularly monitoring for chemical residues and microbial quality and produce international standard meat products.
The Board plans for modernization of Abattoirs in next five years by standardizing size, technologies, equipments, cost etc. / bench marking of Abattoirs, establishing a full-fledged self financing Consultancy Division and providing consultancy to 10 large Abattoirs and 10 class 'B' city Abattoirs to be set up. Consultancy will be provided for setting up 50 large and 110 small Abattoirs.
The Board will cater to the backward linkages- disease free zone/ Traceability etc by organizing meetings with the Department of Animal Husbandry regarding.
One National Lab would be established by July 2010 and five Labs by July 2012 in alignment of domestic standards with international standards.
vlk/ska/dk/kol/13:13 hrs.
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