The first-ever Rs108 crore integrated textile park project with Prashantkumar Mohota as lead promoter will be coming up in Vidarbha at Hinganghat in Wardha district under the Central government scheme (SITP) which is expected to generate at least 1000 jobs and provide much needed fillip to the cotton economy of the region.

Although the main cash crop, cotton of Vidarbha has been in news more for driving farmers to suicide. But the reasons for cotton belt's growing distress is uncertainty over prices and inability to process raw cotton up to textile and garment stages to spur demand.

Inept political leadership of the region along with lackadaisical entrepreneurship saw to it that textile units did not come up in the region and cotton produced here was transported to far off south India or western Maharashtra where they made capital of the white gold while farmers growing it always got a raw deal.

In 2005, SITP was launched by the Union textile ministry but till date not a single textile park had come up under it in Vidarbha. To make SITP attractive, 40% funding (with cap of Rs 40 crore) is provided by the Centre and the State government chipping in with 9% (or Rs 9 crore maximum) capital for the park. Out of the 14 projects sanctioned under SITP, 13 are outside Vidarbha. To be specific, eight of them are located in politically influential western Maharashtra where not a bale of cotton is grown, three in Marathwada and one each at Dhule and Bhiwandi.

Hinganghat Integrated Textile Park Pvt Ltd was incorporated on March 19, 2015, and has authorized share capital is Rs 180,000,000 with paid up capital of Rs 59,500,000.

Mohotas are into textile business for a long time will have local advantage as anchor. The plan is to set up 11 units in the integrated park spread over 32.63 acres. Of them one each will be for ginning, twisting/doubling, knitting, processing, fibre-yarn dying, garmenting, technical textiles and two each for spinning and weaving.

The tenders for construction work would be floated next week, said a company spokeman.

The total cost of Hinganghat Integrated Textile Park worth Rs 108 crore shall be funded through a mix of equity/grant from Union ministry of textiles, state government, State Industrial Development Corporation, Industry, project management consultant and loans from banks/ financial institutions. The Centre has already released first instalment of Rs 4 crore of the grant.