SURAT: Textile entrepreneurs in the country’s biggest man-made fibre industry in the city are eagerly waiting for the Union finance minister to announce a revised Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) and fresh allocation of funds on Monday.

The Federation of Indian Art Silk Weaving Industry (FIASWI), which has submitted a wish list to the Union finance minister, said the delay in revising the TUFS has stopped the fast-paced modernisation in the industry.

In June 2010, the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) had issued fresh guidelines for not approving any further new sanctions under TUFS till the additional allocations are approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs ( CCEA).

The financial institutions and banks were advised not to freeze all the new proposals and to disallow the disbursal of the funds under TUFS.

Industry experts said the city’s textile industry contributes to the nation’s 40 per cent of the man-made fabric demand and that the fast-paced growth from the last few years was only due to interest and capital subsidy under the TUFS. The industry has taken a big leap forward, especially the powerloom sector, by installing upgraded machines such as Rapier, water jets and the imported shuttle-less looms etc. in the last one decade.

Arun Jariwala, chairman of FIASWI, told TOI, “We have strongly demanded that the revised TUFS should be cleared in the wider interest of the textile sector. The pace of modernisation in the industry has been affected due to the delay in clearing the revised TUFS.”

Jariwala said the industry has put forth other suggestions like the textile and the technical textile industry should be deferred from the tax net of GST, reducing the import duty on filament yarn from five per cent to two per cent, abolition of four per cent special additional duty (SDA), duty on all types of yarn and fabrics should be on uniform rate on the line of cotton yarn, etc.