The Telangana government to boost its textile sector is working on the new textile sector policy and has assured that the inputs will be taken into account from the other stakeholders before finalizing the draft of the policy. As part of policy formulation exercise, Minister for Industries K T Rama Rao held meeting with the textile sector representatives and other stakeholders.

The Minister held a meeting with representatives of textile industry, weavers associations, and officials of the Government and assured them the suggestions made by them would be considered positively while preparing the policy, said an official release issued by the Department of Industries.

Recently, the state government has taken the decision to discourage cotton cultivation from this year from the present 42 lakh acres to 15 to 20 lakh acres, in the wake of World Trade Organization’s (WTO) resolution on cotton exports in a recent meeting at Nairobi to which India was signatory. .

India will remove export subsidies on cotton exports from next January.

Telangana farmers produce 60 lakh bales of cotton annually, of which just 10 lakh bales are consumed by the State, it said quoting the Minister. Rao assured the government would protect the interests of the handloom industry.