On October 6, 2021, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi approved the following, i.Cabinet approves Productivity Linked Bonus to railway employees for the financial year 2020-21 ii.Government has approved setting up of 7 Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel
Cabinet approves Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) to railway employees for FY2020-21
Cabinet approved the Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) for FY2020-21 that is equivalent to 78 days’ wages. It is for all eligible non-gazetted Railway employees excluding RPF (Railway Protection Force) /RPSF (Railway Protection Special Force) personnel.
- The maximum amount payable per eligible railway employee is 17,951 for 78 days.
- The outlay of this PLB is estimated to be 1984.73 crore with ceiling of Rs.7000/- p.m.
Key Points:
i.This decision will benefit around 11.56 lakh non-gazetted Railway employees.
ii.The PLB is paid to eligible railway employees each year before the Dusshera/ Puja holidays.
iii.Notably, Railways were the first departmental undertaking of the Government of India wherein the concept of PLB was introduced in the year 1979-80. The scheme envisages a review every three years.
- Even though the Payment of Bonus Act does not apply to the Railways, yet the broad principles contained in that Act marked the initiation of PLB.
Government has approved setting up of 7 Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM MITRA पीएम मित्र) Parks
On the lines of the Union Budget 2021-22 announcement, the Union Cabinet approved the setting up of 7 Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM MITRA) parks with a total outlay of Rs 4,445 crore for five years period. This decision has been taken to make India at par with the global textiles.
- The details for the same were provided by Union Minister Piyush Vedprakash Goyal, Ministry of Textiles.
Parks Location:
The parks will be set up at greenfield/brownfield sites located in different willing states.
- Brownfield sites will get a maximum of Rs 200 crore from the Central Government for the development of common infrastructure (30%of the project cost). These sites have been built on before. It is normally associated with urban areas.
- Greenfield sites will get maximum Development Capital Support (DCS) of Rs 500 crore. These have not been built on before, usually rural / countryside areas.
How will these parks be useful?
These parks will lead to the creation of an integrated textiles value chain involving spinning, weaving, processing/dyeing and printing to garment manufacturing at one location. This will reduce the logistics cost of the industry.
Key highlights of PM MITRA:
i.Central Government will provide Rs 300 crore for each park to incentivise manufacturing units to get established.
ii.Under PM MITRA, 50% area will be developed for pure manufacturing activity, 20% for utilities, and 10% of the area for commercial development.
iii.The parks will be developed by a special purpose vehicle (SPV), which will be owned by the state government and the central government in a public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
iv.State Governments with availability of contiguous and encumbrance-free land parcels of 1,000 plus acres along with other textiles related facilities ecosystem are eligible.
- 10 states have already shown interest in setting up the parks viz. Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana.
v.Parks will create direct employment for 7 lakh people and indirect employment for 14 lakh.
Recent Related News:
i.The Union Cabinet extended the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to the textiles sector to cover and promote textiles for MMF (man-made fibre) apparel, MMF fabrics and ten segments of technical textiles with an outlay of Rs 10,683 crore over a span for 5 years. The objective behind this scheme is to help Indian companies emerge as global champions.
ii.As per the data of the Ministry of Textiles, more than 1,500 artisans have been benefited by training in 63 Samarth Training Centres. The Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector (SCBTS) was named SAMARTH. It is being implemented by the textile ministry.
About Ministry of Textiles:
Piyush Goyal Constituency– Maharashtra
Minister of State (MoS)– Darshana Vikram Jardosh(Constituency- Surat, Gujarat)
