Textile Minister, Santosh Gangwar during his Agra visit recently had announced that an apparel manufacturing park spread over 15 acre of land would be set up in Agra and that bids will be floated very soon for this purpose.

Following this announcement, delegation of Agra based industrialists had a meeting on Wednesday with textile minister Santosh requesting his intervention in issuing necessary instruction to the concern authority and the apparel export promotion council (AEPC) to speed up the process of setting up an apparel manufacturing park and apparel training and design centre (ATDC) in Agra.

Kishan Chand Jain of Agra Development Foundation said that this step would go a long way for the growth of the apparel manufacturing industry in Agra.

Agra has a large population of artisans who are engaged in hand embroidery, zardozi and other handmade products (like carpets, rugs etc). There are a large number of tailors in Agra but they need to be trained to work on modern machines so that they can manufacture apparels for exports and domestic markets. The number of such training centres in north India is much lesser as compared to other regions in the country, the letter to the minister from the delegation read.

There are 13 apparel parks to be developed across the country for which the government is ready to give 40% subsidy to private developers for setting up a Rs 100 crore textile cluster in 15 acres of land. Soon bids will be invited where private players will have the opportunity to express their willingness to set up units.