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Karnataka’s textile policy 2013-18 failed miserably as the government’s ambitious investment and employment targets were not met, according to a Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) report that was tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.

The CAG found that while the government managed to mop up just 63% of the Rs 10,000 crore investment target in the sector, and achieved only 8.9% of the five lakh job target.

Incentives worth Rs 315 crore were also sanctioned to a project on unjustifiable grounds, the audit found.

“The targets for investment and employment were fixed without a proper assessment of the potential,” the report noted, adding that the actual achievement was way below the target during the earlier policy period of 2008-13.

While the Textile Department considered the employment of 50 people for every Rs 1 crore investment, Audit observed that the target fixed for employment generation for Rs 1 crore investment was not achieved across successive policy periods.

“The scrutiny showed that job creation for Rs 1 crore investment in a mega project was between 1.5 and 5 jobs only, against 50 jobs assumed by the Department.”

The government has claimed to have created 1,22,156 jobs during the 2013-18 policy period. “The actual number of jobs generated from fresh investments in the textile sector was only 44,695,” the audit noted. The remaining 77,461 were trained by the institutes which conduct short-term tailoring programmes of which only a few were employed in the garment sector.

“Thus, actual employment generated with fresh investments was only 8.93% of the targeted employment generation of five lakh,” the report said.

On incentives sanctioned on ‘unjustifiable grounds’, the report said that the government did not prescribe norms nor a maximum limit for such incentives while introducing the “special package” for mega projects.

In one case, this resulted in erroneous concessions to the tune of Rs 315 crore to a private firm, “which lacked proper justification,” the report noted.

Among other observations of the report are: the department did not maintain a comprehensive and updated database on various value chain activities for framing appropriate interventions for the growth of the textile sector.

“The integrated textile parks were proposed at four locations without ensuring prospective investors and simply because the land was available with Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board,” the report said.

No information was available with the department as to whether the approved projects were being implemented or withdrawn by proponents, the report added.