The age old Hosiery Industry of West Bengal, once the leading producers of Knits, is confined within the City where expansion and modernisation is not possible. Tirupur and Kolkata are the main cotton Knits production centres. The growth and development of Tirupur was based on being able to provide better infrastructure. The total production in Tirupur is above Rs. 15,000/- Crores (Exports and domestic). Bengal needs to better the same in order to replicate and do better than centres like Tirupur and Ludhiana. To create such facility for its members, the Association went ahead to set up a Hosiery Park with a view to provide a State – of – the art facilities.

With this in view a Special Purpose Vehicle was created and Government of West Bengal through its subsidiary West Bengal Small Industries Development Corporation Ltd. became a Joint Venture partner. Ministry of Textiles, Govt. Of India had launched a Scheme called “Scheme of Integrated Textile Park” under which they provide 40% or Rs. 40 Crore as a grant for developing such a park. We made our application for grant to the Ministry under the above scheme and appointed M/s ICICI – WINFRA (a JV company of ICICI Bank and WBIDC). Our application is presently pending on top most priority to be cleared as and when the Project Appraisal Committee meets.

The SPV has under its possession over 100 acres of land and, in view of overwhelming eagerness shown by the members, have decided to go ahead with the developmental work, as per SITP guidelines, so that the Project can be completed as early as possible.

This one change in the focus is based on providing guidance and acting as facilitators for the healthy growth of the Industry instead putting of problems and seeking remedies.

• Apart from this major set up, the association would endeavour to create and facilitate the following infrastructure.
• To establish training facilities at the micra level in the garmenting clusters to create a pool of skilled manpower. Already one such training centre along with a division of AEPC has been set up.
• To establish a training cum research centre in Eastern India to provide training at all levels in various aspects of business and undertake continuous research on topics of interest to members.
• To establish a well equipped testing centre to enable members to test various aspects of raw materials and finished product. This will help members to assess not only the quality of raw materials but also judge quality conformance as per the set standards.