State Government’s plans to develop its prestigious project Kakatiya Mega Textile Park in Warangal Rural district gets environmental clearance giving a major boost to the textile sector. With the EC secured, the Government will announce incentives for the textile sector in next 15 days to attract prominent players to set up their units in the Mega Park.

Textile sector is one of the 14 key sectors identified by the young State for industrial development. With TSipass, industrial policy and No.1 rank in Ease of Doing Business, the textile sector is all set to come into its own, industry sources said.

Work on the Integrated Textile Project proposed in 1,200 acres in the first phase has been going on for over a year. The Industry Department, which has acquired the land through the TS Industrial Infrastructure Corporation and ready with the Master Plan and Investment Plan for the project, has only been waiting for the crucial environmental clearance to roll out the project.

The Fibre to Fabric (end-to-end) facility, with ginning, spinning, weaving, processing and garmenting processes was conceived by the State Government when it realised that post bifurcation, majority of the processing units went to Andhra Pradesh.

Telangana produced about 60 lakh bales of cotton a year but could only process 10 lakh bales due to shortage of processing units and had to send the rest of cotton to processing units in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat.

Another positive for the State was the cotton grown here was of superior quality than that of Gujarat. Several skilled workers from the State who had left 30 to 40 years ago to work in textile mills in Surat wanted to return to their own State if the Government set up a textile park.

It will bring in a lot of efficiency into the value chain if all the processes are integrated in one mega park instead of only ginning and spinning. Warangal, the nerve centre for cotton cultivation and spinning mills and well connected to National and State highways and proposed Outer Ring Road was identified as ideal place for the Mega Park.

A lot of work will happen on ground in the next two to three weeks. The Government will provide trunk infrastructure like roads, power, water connectivity and common effluent treatment plant. The units are expected to be up and start functioning within nine to 12 months.

Many leading textile players already evinced interest to set up their anchor units once the CETP to be set up in PPP mode and other infrastructure is in place.