Textiles Ministry: Achievements, Carried Over

A year after Narendra Modi's government took office, the ministry of textiles made three claims, all of which are continuation of on-going programmes.

We emailed our findings to the ministry last week, requesting comment. There was no response.

1. Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS): Expansion decided by previous government. Claim: Programme scaled up during 12^th Plan to train 1.5 million people.

#NDAOneYear : 3 major steps by Textiles Ministry : MSP of cotton, #skilldev and CFCs to promote handlooms pic.twitter.com/Dx0rowzAfm
— PIB India (@PIB_India) May 21, 2015

Check revealed: ISDS was launched in August 2010 as a pilot scheme to train 0.3 million people during 2010-11 & 2011-12. ISDS focuses on creating skills needed to enhance the competitive advantage of India in the manufacturing and textile sector. The decision to scale up the scheme during the 12th Plan (2012-17) with an allocation of Rs 1,900 crore to train 1.5 million people had already been taken by the previous government: 187,604 people were already trained by February 2014 under the ISDS, which spent Rs 226 crore through 17 implementing agencies. 2. Record number of cotton bales bought--eight times smaller than previous record. Claim: Largest-ever procurement of cotton at minimum support price (MSP); procurement crossing 8.6 million bales.

"text-align:justify;">Check revealed: During the financial year 2012-13, till December 9, 2012, the Cotton Corporation of India had procured 71.4 million bales of cotton, according to an answer provided to the Lok Sabha by the then Minister of Textiles.

3. Promoting handlooms: Already done Claim: Promotion of handloom sector in an integrated manner.

Check revealed: Two handloom-promotion programmes are already in operation. A. During the 11^th Plan and the initial two years of the 12^th Plan (2012-13 and 2013-14), the Ministry of Textiles developed handloom clusters under the Integrated Handlooms Development Scheme (IHDS): i. 613 handloom clusters, each with 300 to 500 handlooms. ii. 20 clusters, each with 5,000 handlooms.
iii. Six mega handloom clusters, each with 25,000 handlooms. During the 11^th Plan, 610 clusters were sanctioned across the country covering about 0.3 million weavers. Rs 213.5 crore was released during the 11^th plan for the development of handloom clusters. B. Besides IHDP, a Comprehensive Handlooms Development Scheme (CHDS) was launched in 2010. CHDS was to develop new clusters with 200 to 500 handlooms and 2,000 to 5,000 handlooms within four years. Rs 156.6 crore has been released to 71,443 beneficiaries over three years, from 2010 till January 2014.

State‐wise funds released and beneficiaries covered under CHDS during 2010‐11 to 2012‐13 & 2013‐14 (as on Jan 31, 2014) in Clusters taken up:
State	Amount released (in Rs crore)	No. of Beneficiaries
Andhra Pradesh	9.3	5,415
Bihar	2.8	369
Chhattisgarh	2.3	739
Delhi	0.2	0
Gujarat	0.2	0
Haryana	0.2	332
Himachal Pradesh	2	1,397
Jammu & Kashmir	3.3	1,250
Jharkhand	10.1	3,107
Karnataka	6.3	4,792
Kerala	6.6	0
Madhya Pradesh	3.5	635
Maharashtra	1.1	2,515
Orissa	10.5	2,073
Punjab	0	0
Rajasthan	0.8	1,118
Tamilnadu	14.2	3,777
Uttar Pradesh	11.8	2,343
Uttarakhand	3.1	1,322
West Bengal	9.6	1,752
Total	98	32,936
NER
Arunachal Pradesh	5.5	2,500
Assam	12.2	11,663
Manipur	19.3	15,276
Meghalaya	2.7	620
Mizoram	0.8	371
Nagaland	12.9	6,000
Sikkim	0	0
Tripura	5.3	2,077
Total	58.6	38,507
Grand Total	156.6	71,443

Source: Lok Sabha

Tomorrow: Tourism Ministry: Unexceptional Claims You can read the earlier stories from our series below: 1) Overblown, Misleading Claims By 14 Modi Ministries 2) Agriculture Ministry: Old Schemes Renamed, Other Misleading Claims 3) Health Ministry: New Claims, No New Programmes 4) Power Ministry: Marginal Improvements 5) Railway Ministry: 8 Achievements That Really Aren’t
6) Road Transport Ministry: Continues UPA’s Work, Contradicts Own Data 7) Telecom Ministry: Wrong Claims, Bad Maths 8) Sanitation Ministry: Old Wine, New Bottles 9) Department Of Posts: Old Plans On Track (Manoj K is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the founder of the Centre for Governance and Development. He has a special interest in transparency and accountability in governance and has spearheaded several projects on these subjects. He can be contacted at
manoj@cgdindia.org.)

References: Fact Check 1