India’s Textile Industry Overview

• The Cotton/ Man-made fiber textile industry is the largest organized industry in the country in terms of employment and number of units.

Since time immemorial India has been the producer of cotton and the finest and most beautiful cotton fabrics. India is the earliest country in the world to domesticate cotton (Mehrgarh, which is now in Pakistan)

• The Mehrgarh fibers constitute the earliest known example of cotton in the World and put the date of the first use of cotton in around 6000 BC.
• Today India is first country in the word in terms of cultivation area and second in the world in terms of production, next to China.
• In 2009-10, there were 1834 Mills in the country which comprised 1657 Spinning mills and 177 Composite Mills with an installed capacity of 37.07 million spindles, 4,89,718 rotors and 56,526 looms.
• In 2008-09, India produced 290.00 Lakh bales of Raw Cotton, 1067.33 Million Kilograms of Manmade Fiber, 46 Million Kg of Raw wool and 18.35 Million Kilogram of Raw Silk.

Per capita availability of Cloth:

In India per capita availability of cloth is 39.00 square meters per annum.

Exports:

In 2009, India exported $ 20939.8 million worth of Textile including Jute, Coir & Textile Handicrafts. The import of textile products was $ 3499.4 million.

Share in World Textile Production:

India has 22.9 % share in the World Cotton Production in 2009 which is second after China. Following table and graphics shows the share of major Textile producers of the world, (Source: US Cotton Market Monthly Economic letter July 2010)

Extremely Varied Industry:

The Indian textiles industry is extremely varied, with the hand-spun and hand-woven sector at one end of the spectrum, and the capital intensive, sophisticated mill sector at the other. The decentralized power looms/ hosiery and knitting sectors form the largest section of the Textiles Sector. The close linkage of the Industry to agriculture and the ancient culture, and traditions of the country make the Indian textiles sector unique in comparison with the textiles industry of other countries.

Subsectors:

The major sub-sectors that comprise the textiles sector include:

1. Organized Cotton / Man-Made Fiber Textiles Mill Industry
2. Man-made Fibre / Filament Yarn Industry
3. Wool and Woolen Textiles Industry
4. Sericulture and Silk Textiles Industry
5. Handlooms, Handicrafts,
6. Jute and Jute Textiles Industry
7. Textiles Exports.

Production of Cloth:

In 1951-52 India produced around 4740 million square meters of cloth. It had a share of 3730 Million square Meter in Mill Sector and 1010 million square meters in the Non-mill sector (which includes power looms).

• This means that the share of the mill sector was 79% and share of the Decentralized sector (including Handlooms) was 21%.
• In 2008-09 India produced 57521 million square meters of cloth. Out of this only 1796 million square meter was from Mill Sector while 55725 million square meters was from the Decentralized sector.
• This indicates the expansion of power loom and small scale power loom units. The expansion of the industry is mainly because of rise of small scale players in the industry.

The following table and chart shows this scenario.