A Blueprint to Create Productive Jobs, A Lesson From Tiruppur, Pg11

Key Highlights:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized "manufacturing power" as crucial for achieving Viksit Bharat.
• The Textiles and Apparel (T&A) sector is identified as a key area for creating productive jobs at scale.
• India faces significant unemployment among youth (15-29) at 9.9%, rising to 13.6% in urban areas.
• The Tiruppur knitwear cluster exemplifies successful job creation, accounting for 68% of India's knitwear exports and employing over a million workers.
• India aims for T&A exports of $100 billion by 2030, up from $36 billion currently.

Detailed Insights:

• Agriculture still employs 43% of India's workforce, while manufacturing accounts for only 12.1% (PLFS 2025).
• There is an urgent need to shift workers from informal to formal sector employment with social security benefits like Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) and Employees' State Insurance (ESI).
• The T&A sector is highly labour-intensive, predominantly employs women, and requires relatively short training periods for specific roles.
• Despite closing tariff gaps with competitors in major markets, market access alone has not guaranteed export growth, as seen with India's apparel exports to Japan.
• Tiruppur's success stems from its integrated ecosystem, specialized firms, and common infrastructure developed by entrepreneurs, industry associations like the Tiruppur Exporters Association, and government support.
• The cluster collectively invested over Rs 850 crore in common effluent treatment to meet Zero-Liquid-Discharge (ZLD) norms, addressing environmental concerns.
• Government initiatives like the PM MITRA Parks scheme, launched in 2021 to create seven mega textile parks, have seen slow implementation, hindering job creation targets.
• Focusing on T&A offers a path to higher employment intensity at lower costs, unlike capital-intensive advanced technology sectors.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Viksit Bharat: A vision for India to become a developed nation by 2047, focusing on economic growth, social progress, and good governance.
• Formal Sector Employment: Jobs characterized by social security benefits, regular wages, and adherence to labor laws.
• Labour-intensive industry: An industry that requires a large amount of human labor relative to capital investment for production.
• Cluster Development: The geographical concentration of interconnected companies, suppliers, service providers, and associated institutions in a particular field.
• Zero-Liquid-Discharge (ZLD): A water treatment process in which all wastewater is purified and recycled, leaving no liquid waste.
• PM MITRA Parks: The Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel Parks scheme, designed to create world-class infrastructure for the textile industry.