Meeting school uniform requirements:

Preference for local industrialists

Textiles Industries Development Ministry has taken steps to give more preference for the local industrialists to produce textiles and the rest will be imported as unbleached and finishing would be done locally to meet the requirements of 10.5 million meters of school uniforms for the 2010, states an Information Department press release. Accordingly, eight million meters of white materials, 2.5 million meters of white and blue trouser materials, 275,000 m of robes materials are needed.

Capability of producing the entire requirements of school uniforms within the stipulated period is very remote, therefore 6,155,000 metres would be woven locally and 4,420,000 meters of unbleached materials will be imported and finishing would be done locally.

Seven small and medium scale industries have already been entrusted with weaving and finishing materials locally.

The producing of textiles will be strictly supervised and quality-tested by the Textile Training Service Centre.

According to the concept of the Mahinda Chinthanaya, preferentially more allocations are given to the local industrialists to produce school uniforms to encourage them and at the same time huge amount of foreign exchange also could be saved.