SK Panda, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles (MoT), Government of India is retiring on 31st December, 2015 after 35 years of service. He was associated with MoT from past 17 months. He and industry shared views with Apparel Resources about his tenure and most of the industry is unhappy and says ‘efforts may be there but results are not there’.
Elaborating on the efforts he made for the betterment of the textile and apparel industry of India, Panda shared, “I tried to mobilize a team with my colleagues and tried number of things, in which we have got some success. I hope these will be continued with greater zeal and enthusiasm for making our textile industry globally competitive, giving specific attention to the need of the disadvantaged segments of the society.”
Laying an industry perspective on the initiatives taken under Panda’s reign, Prashant Agarwal, JMD, Wazir Advisors averred, “I feel he worked hard in his tenure… The textile policy was framed when he was there, moreover steps like TUFS evaluation and special emphasis on North-eastern States to boost the T&C sector is also commendable. All in all he was able to deliver, but one can also say that the much-needed textile policy is still far from execution. Whereas tenure of 17 months is concerned, I think that there should be at least 3 years for any Secretary-level post as the person working at such higher levels needs to have a long-term vision.”
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Furthermore, one of the leading vertical integrated and public limited company told Team Apparel Resources, “We are totally unhappy with his tenure as nothing concrete was there, steps like textile policy, TUFS evaluation and focus on North-eastern states have not given big results and these are not helping in taking the textile industry to a next level on the global map despite having enough potential.” There is also a general acceptance in the industry that Panda focused more on handloom and handicraft sector than on mainstream industry.
About his working style, one of the directors of MoT says, “It was good that he saved officials from petty politics which is everywhere. Meetings with him were time really productive most of the as he was focused and determined to being change in handloom and handicraft segment. I feel things could have been little better if he would have listened more to his subordinates.”
