Textile sector has received a setback with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) rejecting the Textile Ministry’s request for linking the entire textile sector to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). Textile Minister Santosh Gangwar, soon after taking charge had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to link the entire textile sector, including garments and fibre, to MGNREGA.
Although, the scheme could be linked to specific sectors within the textile industry such as handicraft and handloom but major reservation came from the Rural Development Ministry, which does not want to tamper with the existing scheme and has opined that many within the textile industry, including garment producers, could afford to offer more than the minimum wages given by the Government to attract labour.
The MGNREGA scheme, where the Government guarantees minimum wages for a minimum 100 days in a year for every household, is already available for the silk cultivation sector, but the garment sector within the Textile sector, has been demanding for long that the scheme be available for workers employed by it, complaining of labour shortage during peak demand season, as many workers prefer to work under the MGNREGA schemes.