Circular No.ES/ 42 /2018-19 April 30, 2018
To: Members of the Council
Sub.: Highlights of the i-TUFS Task Force meeting held on 25th April 2018 at Mumbai
Dear Member,
We would like to inform you that the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee (IMSC) of Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (A-TUFS) was held under the Chairpersonship of Smt Smriti Zubin Irani, Hon’ble Union Minister of Textiles and Information & Broadcasting held on 23.3.2018.
The Task Force constituted for simplifying i-TUFS met on 25th April 2018 at Mumbai. The meeting was chaired by Smt Pushpa Subrahmanyam, IAS., Special Secretary. The meeting was attended by Dr Kavita Gupta, IAS, Textile Commissioner, Smt Jaya Dubey, IAS, Joint Secretary (TUFS), other members of Task Force, officials of the financial institutions and the officials of the Textile Commissioner’s office.
On behalf of the Council our Executive Director, Shri S.Balaraju attended the meeting along with Dr K Selvaraju, Secretary General, The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA), Mr.Mukesh Tyagi, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), Mr.Rahul Mehta, Chairman, The Clothing Manufacturers' Association of India (CMAI).
The points emerged during this meeting are as under :-
- The Special Secretary requested the industry Heads to give their feedback regarding the implementation of A-TUFS and the difficulties faced by the industry as only a few cases were sanctioned out of the 5600 applications which have been uploaded in the A-TUFS. Dr K Selvaraju stated that more than 90% of the projects were already completed and commenced commercial production but could not get the subsidy as large number of textile machinery manufacturers/ suppliers were not enlisted as they could not provide the various documents prescribed under A-TUFS;
- After detailed deliberations, Special Secretary suggested that the enlistment of machinery manufacturers / suppliers should only be indicative and not mandatory for availing subsidy as 90% to 95% of the investment is made by the industry and in addition, the subsidy is released only after the recommendation of the Joint Inspection Team (JIT). She also advised the Textile Commissioner to convene the Technical Advisory-cum-Monitoring Committee (TAMC) and make suitable recommendations to issue clarification or make necessary amendments in the A-TUFS GR (3.1 and 4.2.1);
- It was discussed that since there is a huge demand for the imported machines, the industry is depending upon the suppliers and many manufacturers are not extending their cooperation in submitting the documents as they already sold the machines.
- With regard to simplification of i-TUFS software, a detailed deliberation was made from registration onwards and Special Secretary clearly insisted –
- To have a system driven approach rather than manual scrutiny except where wrong entry is made with reference to PAN number.
- The software would send alert SMS and e-mail so that the correction could be made within few days. Such cases would get into FIFO QUEQUE once they upload the correct PAN number.
- The UID will be generated automatically on a FIFO method without any manual intervention.
The Task Force
- In case of Joint Inspection Team (JIT), the Textile Commissioner insisted to have a fool proof inspection system including CCTV footage / video of JIT inspecting the unit as the same is final verification before the fund is released. The software should take utmost care of the items automatically if units follow procedures properly;
- With regard to the issue of date of invoice or date of purchase (GR clause No.4.2.7 and 4.7), the intention of the GR is only to ensure that date of purchase should be on or after the date of loan sanction. In the case of domestic machinery, the date of invoice and date of purchase would be the same while in the case of imported machines, the moment payment is made the invoice is raised which is permissible as per clause No.4.7; however, as per clause No.4.27, the purchase date means the commercial invoice date both domestic and imported machine. Therefore, it was suggested to have the Bill of Entry as the date of purchase for the imported machines. It was informed that this subject is also to be discussed in the TAMC and suitable recommendation would be made to the IMSC for necessary amendments in the GR;
The above simplified procedures would expedite faster release of A-TUFS subsidy and enable Ease of Doing Business.
Members may kindly make a note of the above.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
S.BALARAJU
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
