Role of AEPC in Indian Garment Industry
Indian apparel industry is one of the important export sectors and enjoys good global ranking because of its quality and price competitiveness. However, there is a growing need to increase competitiveness in the social domain as the industry faces various labour, compliance and contextual challenges. Being a labour intensive industry, social compliance is becoming an important issue for this sector. The apparel export promotion council of India (AEPC) under the textiles ministry is helping domestic textile industry to adhere to global norms through development and implementation of tools to help factories certify, monitor and improve universal standards. AEPC’s assistance to garment exporters AEPC provides invaluable assistance to Indian garment exporters as well as international buyers who select India as their preferred sourcing destination for garments. The body today has grown to become the most powerful association for promotion and facilitation of garment exports. With an objective of building a strong ground for the Indian exporters, AEPC is committed to provide various platforms which would help in increasing garment exports. AEPC- Disha Initiative AEPC in its continuous efforts to make India a preferred sourcing destination plans to undertake a series of activities to strengthen the compliance code capacity in the Indian export garment industry. Further, the project DISHA has been initiated with the aim to unify the Indian apparel manufacturers for mutual co-operation, global alignment and resource optimisation. It also focuses to create and adopt management systems to address human and environmental challenges. Objectives of Disha programme
To increase awareness among apparel manufacturers on social and environmental standards based on applicable Indian laws
To improve competitiveness of apparel manufacturers
To promote a management system oriented thinking and approach for engaging with social and environmental issues
To promote a process-based certification system that enables measurement of progress towards adoption and maintenance of benchmark practices in the Disha Common Code of Conduct (Disha-CCC)
Major components of Disha Environmental, social and safety related compliance issues are gong to assume increasing importance in textiles and apparel sector as the competiveness in the sector moves to new emerging economies. Creating an environment for better compliance standards and improved social sustainability of the industry can give India the required edge over its competitors in the global market. Some of the major components of the program Disha are:
Common Code of Conduct (CCC) AEPC-Disha’s common code of conduct is designed to guide the Indian apparel manufacturers on legal, social and environmental issues. The program establishes the principles for business responsibility, based on applicable Indian laws and International labour organisation (ILO) conventions approved by the Government of India.
Factory Capacity Building & Training The common code of conduct involves orientation for the owners of apparel factories and capacity building for factory-nominated personnel on Disha-CCC and towards applying the management systems for Disha-CCC.
Baseline & Impact Assessment Initially, a factory shall undergo a pre intervention baseline assessment for gap analysis against the Disha-Common Code of Conduct (CCC) principles and benchmarks. Afterwards, post intervention assessments on operationalisation of the management systems in the factory shall be undertaken.
Disha Certification A Disha certificate shall be awarded to the factory by AEPC upon successful and satisfactory implementation of the social and environmental management system.
