Indian Textile Industry: past - present and future
Indian Textile Industry is one of the oldest manufacturing industries of India. The roots of development of textile industry could be traced to the entry of East India Company into India, which was also credited for gearing up of industrial revolution in west. Before British Rule , our country was the major source for Mulmul, Jute, Silk, Pashmina shawls, etc.But as East India Co.?s strategy, it started the industrialization of textile industry which erstwhile was dominated by cottage industry and started taking advantage of economies of scale by producing in bulk quantities with the help of machineries.
As a result soon our country emerged as a hub for cotton textiles products. Cities like Mumbai, Kanpur, Ahmedabad soon become big textile centers. Ahmedabad was popularly known as Manchester of East . This situation prevailed for long time till independence. Now we should analyze what happened after the independence and what were the reasons for downturn.
Our policies at the beginning of independence were under impression of socialism, so the policy makers applied the same for the textile sector as well, so we tried to protect our local players , we restricted the competition from abroad, which in turn lead our industry to work in isolation. Our industrialist were least bothered to know where the world is moving ahead, they just tried to exploit the facilities and schemes given by government, so the results were obvious, over staffing , heavy over heads, obsolete machinery, gradual deterioration of quality, mafia of unions and many more which ultimately resulted into the closure of units throughout the country, which left the thousands of employees out of job.
So this condition prevailed till the late 80s , but if we look at the present situation, the picture is very rosy and seem to have bright prospect in future as well , so we need to look back that how we fight back and emerged as a winner once again.
Our race towards excellence began with the introduction of L.P.G. (liberalization, privatization, globalization) package in 1991 to cure the bankruptcy of our economy by the then Finance Minister and present Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.
He opened the boundaries of our country and thereby allowing the spirit of competition and at the same time our industrialist were exposed to the development happening across the world. The result is that our industrialist left with no choice then to prepare themselves to survive in changing scenario. They acted proactively by adopting latest machineries and technology that results into better utilization of resources. The people who denied the nature?s law of change and did not changed with the time , has to close their operations.
Once again the ageless Darwinian principal of Survival of Fittest remained practical , so the business houses which changed themselves are growing at a handsome pace. There were lot of mergers and consolidations took place. One of the very significant outcome of the whole process of globalization is that new breed of entrepreneurs who have the dream in their eyes to conquer the world , invested time and money to adopt globally accepted technologies and marketing practices and they did not limit their operations to domestic boundaries but start marching aggressively all over the world and the result is the emergence of strong Indian brands on world map. Companies like Raymond, Reliance , Indian Rayon, Wellspun, Alok, Arvind, Ashima and many more are establishing their names among the best of world.
Now what lies ahead , there is no doubt that the future of the Indian textile industry is very bright mainly because of the abolishment of the prevailing quota regime (Agreement of Textiles and Clothing) from January 1, 2005. In quota regime each country?s export is restricted to the extent of fixed quota , and in the quota free scenario there will be a level playing field for each country and there will be no restriction on quantity of exports, so we can expect the major thrust on the export led growth of our textile sector.
We can say that once again there is all the chances that India will lead the revolution that is sure to take place in near future as we did during Software Boom. There will be a immense competition from our neighboring countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh , and all time favorite China to capture the lion?s share of new and untapped market , but we can hope for best because of the active assistance from the government on all the fronts and the same is reflected in the measures included in present budget . So it is the high time for our textile players to prepare for the real war ahead in near future an establish India?s pride once again on the world map.