Apparel Online India 1-15 July' 17 | Page 53

INDIA CANVAS regular factory, but also something which will actually improve the skills of our tailors like a training centre and a sustainable factory. Many more facilities will also be provided to the workers to support their families and children. Approximately, we will invest close to Rs. 24 crore to achieve these goals.” The company decided to also expand outside Karnataka as the policies of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh seem to be more fruitful compared to Karnataka. 95 per cent of the workforce in their factory are women and the company is very active on workers’ welfare front. Apart from routine health check-up camps, it has comfortable loan systems for its workers, helping them in education including the production unit. Earlier we were working daily for 8 hours, but now we will work for 9 hours from Monday to Friday which makes us loose some hours of production. But we are hoping that our workforce will be more energetic after this decision is executed. Especially as most of our employees are women workers, they will get more time to spend at home,” informed a proud Adil. Adil manages factories and for better management of these with a full-fledged professional approach, he has distributed senior staff to the factories as the CEO of the company doesn’t sit in the corporate office. Each of the factories of Colorlines has senior management present there. “We like to assign approval ROSL driving growth in Indian garment industry, says AEPC Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), the apex council for the apparel exporters in India, recently conducted a survey to find out the reasons behind the exceptional export growth of 31.7 per cent in April 2017. In its study, AEPC figured out that Rebate of State Levies (ROSL) scheme has hugely impacted the industry in a positive way. The industry seems to be undergoing a sudden boom and is expecting a constant increase in exports over a period of three years. According to the survey done in 8 states where there has been substantial apparel production, 85 per cent of apparel exporters were considerably benefited by the scheme in their export performance, while 65 per cent witnessed a constructive influence. Additionally, 64 per cent people said that the scheme helped them a lot to expand their factories, which leads them to generate more employment and better work environment. After recording the impact of ROSL, the exporters are all set to increase their capacity regularly to gain more. About 61 per cent of industry respondents believe that they can deliver growth above 15-20 per cent; with as many as 6 per cent expect more than 30 per cent growth. Ashok G Rajani, Chairman, AEPC commented, “AEPC has been reiterating the importance of ROSL for the industry. ROSL has been a helping hand for the industry to deliver phenomenal growth in the sector and its people. The day the scheme had been announced, since last June, it played a positive role for the exporters and its roll-out in September last year helped lifting the plunging apparel exports.” TEA urges centre to expedite the release of ROSL pending claims of their children. “As our industry is very time bound and stressful, we all are running from pillar to post… We have therapists and psychologists coming regularly to meet the workers as well as the middle-level management. Another thing that we just implemented is the changing working hours of the factory (not corporate office). Now we are working five days a week decisions to the senior management. All of us meet once a month and discuss the overall strategy. The benefit that we have in this trade being young is that we can learn from the experience of stalwarts of the industry. Our core team is very much experienced to run the company. We are roaming around and learning,” Adil concluded on a positive note. Raja M Shanmugham, President, Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA), has urged the centre to expedite releasing Rebate of State Levies (ROSL) pending claims. He said that the ROSL has been pending for more than nine months for most of the garment exporting units and only a few units got the partial ROSL amount till the month of December. The total ROSL amount for All India Readymade Garment Exports (Woven and Knitwear) estimated for the period – 20th September 2016 to 20th June 2017 – is Rs. 3,025 crore, and out of this till date only Rs. 400 crore has been disbursed and the balance of Rs. 2,625 crore is yet to be given. He also stated that for Tirupur exporting units alone, the ROSL amount pending is about Rs. 550 crore. Though in the Union Budget 2017-18, Rs. 1,555 crore was allotted for ROSL claim, till date it has not been disbursed. www.apparelresources.com | JULY 1-15, 2017 | Apparel Online India 53