For the smaller textile mills in Tamil Nadu, availability of raw material at reasonable prices is key for economic viability, said R. Arunkarthik, president of the South India Spinners Association.
Mr. Arunkarthik told The Hindu on the sidelines of the Association’s annual meeting on Tuesday that volatility in raw material prices is one of the main reasons for the textile mills going sick. The Union government should remove the import duty on cotton permanently so that Indian cotton prices drop. The Tamil Nadu government should support and encourage cotton cultivation in Tamil Nadu by extending financial support to farmers for automation and purchase of quality seeds.
For the smaller mills to use more of manmade fibre (MMF), the State government should set up a cotton and fibre auction centre. This will be a platform for foreign companies to sell the raw material to the mills in Tamil Nadu. The Cotton Corporation of India should open a ware house in Tamil Nadu so that the smaller mills can buy cotton from it directly, he added.
Mr. Arunkarthik said nearly 100 units that were its members had shutdown operations in the last five years because of the slowdown in the textile industry. The age of the machinery in the existing mills was 10 to 25 years. The smaller mills were reluctant to invest in modernisation as it was capital intensive. “The Tamil Nadu government should extend 25 % capital subsidy as done by States such as Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh so that the mills can invest in modernisation,” he added.
The mills were currently operating at 95 % capacity as the demand for yarn had picked up and many of them had shifted to speciality yarns, he added.
Published – September 15, 2026 10:05 pm IST
