Textile engineering enjoys good growth in the country. The business in 2004-05 amounted to Rs 1,650 crore, which was a Rs-250 crore increase from the year-ago level.

Despite the bull run, textile industry is running short of machinery. Today, textile companies have to wait one or two year for delivery of machines, whereas, orders are completed within 10-12 months.

This growing demand is a tough challenge to cope with for Lakshmi Machine Works (LMW), Coimbatore.

It takes 18 months to fulfill new orders, but R. Rajendran, spokesperson for LMW, expects the delivery time to be cut down to 10-12 months in 2006-07 with its new capacities.

Two reasons forwarded for the delay in delivery of machines: textile companies are expanding capacities rapidly and pace of supply of machinery not in tune with the current demand.

Second reason is the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) of the Textile Ministry is likely to end by March 2007. As a result, textile companies wishing to make the most of the scheme are rushing to place orders for the machines, says C V Radhakrishnan, Advisor, Textile Machinery Manufacturers Association.

Radhakrishnan foresees that considering the development of textile industry, India would need 12 million spindles in the next five years, whereas only 10 million spindles would be provided by domestic textile engineering industry.

Meanwhile, confirming the trend S K Tayal, Chairman of KSL and Industries said shortage of machinery does not bother established companies as against medium and small groups that will get their production schedules affected in the long run.

Fibre2fashion.com