After Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first announcement in Nagaland that the Centre would set up one modern apparel garment manufacturing center in each of the eight North East states, the union textiles ministry has finalized a policy under which the Central government would bear the cost of providing 300 machines to each such centre. All the NE state governments have been asked to provide 1.5 acres of land each, preferably near the capital city.

This will give an opportunity for the entrepreneurs of North-east having backgrounds on textiles to run apparel garment business on a "plug and play" model under which they could hire government-owned establishments on lease.

It will be a new beginning for organized textiles sector in North-east. Once the programme is implemented, about 12,000 people are likely to get employed, said the union textiles secretary SK Panda. Panda is a Manipur-Tripura cadre IAS and former chief secretary of Tripura.

According to the new policy, assets of the proposed factories will be jointly owned by the Centre and the state government concerned. To make life easier for the entrepreneur, the government has decided to provide financial assistance for hiring services of key management personnel including one ex-serviceman for administration, one technical person having a degree in textiles or fashion technology, one finance manager and one IT person.

Their cost would be built in the project cost itself, for the first three years. A textile ministry representative will be associated with the selection of the entrepreneur and the management of the Centre.

The manufacturing facilities are expected to produce garments for meeting the local demand of police, para military forces deployed in the state, state government officials etc., in addition to producing school uniforms.

India has a huge potential for an upswing. Presently, India's share in the global apparel and garment market is just 3.7% as against Bangladesh's 6.1% and Vietnam's 4.3%.