The government plans a country-wide mapping of India’s textile hubs to boost policy planning, cluster development, and sectoral growth. From Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat to Tamil Nadu, major textile hubs in the country are going to be mapped in minute detail as the government gets ready to conduct a national survey of the textile industry. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is developing a framework for assessing the health of the sector and is likely to conduct the survey in 2027, according to government officials.
The forthcoming survey will cover a wide set of indicators, including financial inclusion, gross value added, enterprise and worker conditions, export status, access to credit, and loan repayment pattern. The textile sector is among India’s largest employment generators and plays a very vital role in the country’s industrial landscape.
Officials said the move follows a request from the Ministry of Textiles for an exclusive survey of units engaged in the textile-related activities. The industry of textiles and apparel contributes close to 2.3% in India’s gross domestic product and accounts for about 13% of all the industries’ production.
“India has several centers for textiles in the country,” a government official said. “The Ministry of Textiles has been asked to provide the list of areas for which the textile business is conducted. The Ministry of Textiles is also looking at what kind of data regarding their areas will be useful for the Ministry of Statistics and Policy Implementation in their endeavors,” the official added.
Textile clusters are quite spread out in India, with Surat in Gujarat recognized for synthetic fabrics, Tirupur in Tamil Nadu recognized for knit wear and Ludhiana in Punjab for woolens, to name a few. The proposed survey is expected to give the policymakers a better understanding of the textile clusters and help them design their efforts for the development of this industry in a more focused way.
