Tamil Nadu is making efforts to persuade the Indian Government to fully exempt handloom textiles from the goods and services tax (GST) like the khadi sector, state minister for handlooms and textiles OS Manian said recently. A 5 per cent GST rate is helping Tiruppur’s garment and hosiery sector in to achieve an annual sales turnover of ₹40,000 crore, he said. As Tamil Nadu has 1,081 weavers’ cooperative societies, the efforts are being made to encourage the handloom sector, a newspaper quoted the minister as saying. Textiles minister Smriti Zubin Irani told parliament last month that the turnover of most weavers does not exceed ₹20 Lakh and therefore, they do not require registration under GST, which applicable to the textile sector, including handlooms.
