The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Netaji Apparel Park project is a grand success: TEA president

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Netaji Apparel Park project is a grand success: TEA president

Staff Reporter

He was reacting to certain criticisms levelled against TEA administration

Tirupur: The Netaji Apparel Park set up by Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA) has catapulted the image of the Tirupur knitwear cluster globally as a conducive destination for investment, according to TEA president A Sakthivel.

Employment

“The NAP presently provides employment to 15,000 people and generates export revenue of Rs. 1,500 crore from the apparels produced in it,” he said here on Thursday.

Mr. Sakthivel was reacting to certain criticisms levelled against TEA administration by one of its founder members and former treasurer M. Velusamy, who is a contestant for the post of TEA president in the elections scheduled on August 9, in a press meet earlier in the day.

Mr.Velusamy said he decided to contest for the post following a general feeling in the cluster that TEA was concentrating to address the problems of only big exporters. “The formation of Tirupur Exporters and Manufacturers Association, comprising small scale exporters, is a resultant of that perception,” he said.

Mr. Velusamy blamed that almost all the projects promoted by TEA in the last few years like Netaji Apparel Park, TEAKTEX apparel unit in Palakkad district of Kerala, warehouse project in Europe and a dyeing unit at Dharapuram, among others were failures.

Videograph

He said that a demand had been put to the authorities concerned to videograph the polls, since foul play was suspected.

Clarification

Mr. Sakthivel claimed that the TEAKTEX project started by TEA as a joint venture with Kerala Government was not a failure.

“Only thing was that we faced some operational problems owing to lightning strikes in that State and hence, handed over its administration to another set of people. The unit is now running well,” he told The Hindu.

Regarding the warehouse project, he clarified that it did not take off owing to lack of feasibility at the conceptualisation stage itself before a single penny was invested in it.

Likewise, the dyeing factory planned by TEA at Dharapuram did not come up owing to some opposition from farmers and not because of association's inability, he added.

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