The government informed Parliament on Thursday that the proposed scheme to launch seven mega investment textile parks (MITRA) is awaiting approval of the Cabinet.“The proposed scheme of setting up MITRAs by the Ministry of Textiles is in the process of obtaining approval of the Cabinet. Once the scheme is approved and modalities are decided, the location of MITRAs in different states will be evaluated,” Minister of State for textiles Darshana Jardosh told Rajya Sabha.In a separate reply, she said so far, Rs 1,469 crore of grant has been released, 1.02 lakh employment generated and Rs 13,311 crore investments have been attracted in the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks.

Textile mills

Under National Textile Corporation (NTC) Limited, a Central Public Sector Enterprise, no mill was closed down during the last two years, Parliament was informed.Due to Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown imposed by the various states, the production activities in NTC Limited mill units were put on hold since March 25, 2020. After lifting up of the lockdown and as per availability of raw material, NTC restored operation of 14 mill units from January 2021 onwards.“The second wave of Covid-19 pandemic again led to closure of all NTC mill operations in April, 2021. Now NTC has restored operations in some of its mills in July, 2021 as per raw material availability,” Minister of State for textiles Darshana Jardosh told Rajya Sabha, adding that the employees were paid salary regularly as per their status by NTC out of its cash reserve.Handloom support

The government informed Parliament that so far about 1.50 Lakh weavers have been on-boarded on the Government e-Marketplace that enables them to sell their products directly to various government departments and organizations and to enhance productivity, marketing capabilities and ensure better incomes, 125 Handloom Producer companies have been formed in different states.MPLADS

The government has released Rs 1,107.5 crore against the pending instalments of 2019-20 and previous years, in 2020-21 to clear the committed liabilities under Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), Parliament was informed Thursday.The government is also releasing all pending instalments of 2019-20 in respect of Members of Parliament of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in FY22, subject to the fulfilment of eligibility criteria and submission of eligible documents by the district Authorities, as per the MPLADS guidelines, Minister of state (independent charge) for statistics and programme implementation Rao Inderjit Singh told Rajya Sabha.“Yes sir,” he replied on being asked if the government has taken steps to release the pending installments prior to March 30, 2020 which is due to the members, but not released due to administrative delays.