Culture Secretary Raghvendra Singh( 59) has been appointed as new Secretary of Textiles. A Post Graduate in History from the Delhi University and a 1983 batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre, Singh has earlier served various departments like Ministry of Agriculture & Co-operation and Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The development came after Anant Kumar was moved to the Land Resources department. According to reports, Anant Kumar from 1984 batch, UP cadre, has been shunted out in an unusual transfer order.“ This sudden transfer was necessitated as he and Textiles Minister Smriti Irani did not get along,” reports a leading English daily.
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Anant Kumar served just 15 months in the Ministry of Textiles( MoT). In a similar case, Rashmi Verma who was the Textile Secretary before Anant Kumar, was transferred after a brief period of 17 months in MoT. Recently Anant Kumar noticed irregularities worth Rs 200 crore in the National Handloom Development Corporation( NHDC), a public sector undertaking under the Textiles Ministry. The matter has now been referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation( CBI).
“ Anant Kumar should have been removed or transferred earlier as he was not able to deliver. We invited him many times to visit Tirupur to understand India’ s biggest knitting hub but he never came. There was enough scope that he could perform
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well,” said a Tirupur-based apparel industry stalwart on the request of anonymity.
In the last seven years, the Ministry of Textiles has seen five secretaries and none of them have served more than 18 months.“ They should give
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at least three years’ time to any Secretary-level officer, as any person working at such higher level needs to have a long-term vision,” said another industry veteran of Delhi-NCR who didn’ t want to be quoted. |
The 18th Knit Show, a threeday-long event organised from 5-7th August, with more than 300 exhibitors, has brought back positivity into Tirupur’ s apparel and textile industry. The top technology companies, like Dhaval Colour Chem( DCC), Grafica Flextronica, Mehala Machines, Kansai Special, Cheran Machines, and Zedex, from different segments of textile and apparel industry, displayed their latest offerings in the show. Along with cutting room solution, circular and flat knitting machines, sewing, printing( digital as well as screen printing), there were fabric and trim companies too who participated in the event. Team Apparel Online met many exhibitors at the event and most of them shared that market in Tirupur is now picking up as they expect good business in coming days. The |
18th Knit Show witnessed good visitation
exhibitors also informed that, from last two months, they were getting good inquiries from apparel manufacturers. S. Thiruvengadathan of Lakshmi
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Bio Chem shared that their business was going well and they were now focusing on the Bangladesh market. Lakshmi Bio Chem is known for screen print |
ink and caters to most of the major players of screen printing.
Similarly, many other small, as well as big companies’ representatives, shared the positive reflection in their markets revealing their plans of expanding their capacity. Companies like Zydex Industries, EPTA India are also working aggressively on their future projects. H. Krishna, Director, Knit Show and also the organiser of the event told Apparel Online that thousands of visitors marked their presence in the show.“ We are happy with the show as good number of exhibitors as well as visitors participated,” he added.
During the inauguration ceremony, Udumalai K. Radhakrishnan, Minister for Animal Husbandry stated that the State Government is mulling over the establishment of a trade fair centre in Tirupur.
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