Karna Textile Policy: Employment, Investment targets not met

Bengaluru: The investment and employment generation targets envisaged in Karnataka’s Textile Policy have not been achieved because they were set without proper assessment of ground realities in the sector, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said in its report.

It has said, the targets of Rs 10,000 crore investment and 5 lakh employment generation envisaged in the policy (2013-18) were not achieved and the short fall was to the extent of 63 per cent and 76 per cent respectively.

In its report tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday, the CAG has said, actual employment generated with fresh investment was only 8.93 per cent of the targeted employment generation of five lakh.

The CAG pointed out that the Textile department considered the employment of 50 people for every Rs 1 crore investment and thus set a target of 5 lakh employment for Rs 10,000 crore investment in the policy period.

The audit observed that the target fixed for employment generation for Rs 1 crore investment was not achieved across successive policy periods (2008-13 and 2013-18).

“The scrutiny showed that job creation for Rs one crore investment in a Mega project was between 1.5 and 5 jobs only against 50 jobs assumed by the department.

Drastic reduction in labour requirement on account of automation, which had not been taken into account by the department, thus led to a hugely exaggerated employment generation target,” it said.

Out of 1.22 lakh jobs said to have been generated during the 2013-18 policy period, the actual number of jobs generated from fresh investments in the Textile sector was only 44,695, the report said.

It further noted that the remaining 77,461 were trained by the institutes which conduct short-term tailoring programmes of which few were employed in the garment sector and the rest were self employed.

“Thus, actual employment generated with fresh investments was only 8.93 per cent of the targeted employment generation of five lakh,” it added.

The report stated that “sub-par” achievements in meeting the targets of two policies, which spanned over a period of 10 years (2008-18) despite higher incentives in the current policy vindicate the audit observation that targets were set without proper assessment of ground realities in the sector.

There was inordinate delay in release of incentives or subsidy amount to the beneficiary units which affected their cash flow, a release quoting report said.

Incentive or subsidy to one super mega project was sanctioned by exceeding the admissible limit under the textile policy on extraneous grounds caused extra financial implication of Rs 315 crore.