Thursday, June 5, 2008

Indian government supports technical textile industry

by Jo Black

The Indian federal government is evolving a consensus for the mandatory use of specific technical textile products and is setting up an Inter-Ministerial Committee for examining the feasibility of a regulatory framework in this regard to ensure the safety and well-being of human life.

It is also facilitating the formation of a Development Council for Technical Textiles comprising representatives of manufacturers, raw material suppliers, academic institutes and research associations, to identify the problems plaguing the industry and suggest remedial measures.

These decisions were announced by Mr. Shankersinh Vaghela, India Minister of Textiles and Mr. A K Singh, Secretary Ministry of Textiles, at the FICCI Conference of ‘India Technical Textiles Industry’ – Stimulating Demand and Promoting Development.

Inaugurating the day-long conference, Mr. Vaghela said that the government is proposing to set up four Centres of Excellence to provide infrastructure support at one place for thrust areas of technical textiles.

These centers would provide internationally accredited testing labs, training facilities for trainers and technicians from the industry, IT-enabled information centres andn other support.

The four Centres of Excellence would be ready within six to seven months, the Minister said, adding that these centers are Bombay Textile Research Association (BTRA) in association with IIT; Mumbai for geotech; Silk & Art Silk Manufacturing Industry Research Association (SASMIRA) for agrotech; Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA) for protech; and Southern India Textile Research Association (SITRA) for meditech; both in association with IIT, Delhi.

He appealed to textile entrepreneurs to take advantage of these centers for the necessary support for setting up technical textile units.

Responding to the observations by Dr. Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI, the Minister said the Technology Mission, announced by the Prime Minister in September 2007, will provide support for the development of the technical textile industry in terms of capacity building of the manufacturers; standardization, product development, common testing faculties; domestic and export market development; and skill development.

Mr. Vaghela said in order to strengthen the database of the technical textile industry, the government has asked ICRA Management Consultancy Services to conduct a baseline survey.

The report of ICRA would be ready in September this year. It would shed light on the potential market size of the industry and also suggest an Action Plan for removing the hurdles in the growth of the technical textile industry.

Mr. A K Singh, Secretary, Textiles, pointed out that unlike conventional textiles, which have become very competitive with most of the textile units on expansion mode, the competitive level of the technical textile industry was very low. Thus, there was enough scope for high profit margins.

He said for some technical textile products there was no indigenous input and the entire demand was met through imports, and the manufacturing capacity of some other products was also limited in the country.

The Indian market, he said, was extremely price sensitive and import inhibits the consumption of various items of technical textiles.

With indigenous production, the market for most of these products will grow substantially, Mr. Singh observed.

 

 

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