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India's CCEA approves National Technical Textiles Mission

28 Feb '20

3 min read

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India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recently approved setting up of a National Technical Textiles Mission with a total outlay of ₹1480 crore to make the country a global leader in technical textiles. The mission would have a four-year implementation period from fiscal 2020-21 to 2023-24.

The mission will have four components: research, innovation and development (outlay of ₹1,000 crore); promotion and market development; export promotion; and education, training and skill development.

The component of research, innovation and development will promote fundamental research at fibre level aiming at path breaking technological products in carbon fibre, aramid fibre, nylon, and composites and foster application-based research in geo-textiles, agro-textiles, medical textiles, mobile textiles and sports textiles and development of bio¬degradable technical textiles.

The fundamental research activities will be based on 'pooled resource' method and will be conducted in various Centre for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and other laboratories of repute.

The Indian technical textiles segment is estimated at $16 billion, approximately 6 per cent of the $250 billion global market. The penetration level of technical textiles is low in India, varying between 5 per cent and 10 per cent against the level of 30-70 per cent in developed countries.

The second component, promotion and market development, will aim at achieving an average growth rate of 15-20 per cent per annum taking the level of domestic market size to $40-50 billion by 2024 through market development, market promotion, international technical collaborations, investment promotions and 'Make in India' initiatives.

The third component, export promotion, aims at promoting export of technical textiles and enhancing it from the current annual value of ₹14,000 crore to ₹20,000 crore by 2021-22 and ensuring a 10 per cent average growth in exports per year up to 2023-24. An Export Promotion Council for Technical Textiles will be set up for effective coordination and promotion activities in the segment, according to an official press release.

The fourth component, education, training and skill development, will promote technical education at higher engineering and technology levels related to technical textiles and its application areas covering engineering, medical, agriculture, aquaculture and dairy segments.

Skill development will be promoted and adequate pool of highly skilled manpower resources will be created for meeting the need of relatively sophisticated technical textiles manufacturing units.

There is an important sub-component in the research activity aiming at development of indigenous machineries and process equipment for technical textiles to promote 'Make In India' and enable competitiveness of the industry by way of reduced capital costs.

A mission directorate in the ministry of textiles headed by an eminent expert will be made operational. The mission will fold up after four years.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)