Date:01/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/01/stories/2008100154780500.htm

Tamil Nadu

“Investment chances galore in textile sector”

Staff Reporter

Tirupur: A baseline survey is being conducted by the Centre with the technical assistance of ICRA Management Consultancy Service to study the country’s technical textile industry. A report on the survey will be published shortly, said Minister of State for Textiles E.V.K.S. Elangovan here on Tuesday.

Inaugurating a seminar and exhibition on ‘Investment opportunities for Indian technical textiles industry’, he said that the study paper would come out with details on the potential market size of the sector and suggest an action plan for removing operational hurdles in the growth of technical textile segment.

‘The present database of nation’s technical textile industry is very limited,’ he added. The event was jointly organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, SITRA, Textiles Committee, Tirupur Exporters Association and Knit Cloth Manufacturers Association.

Centres of excellence

Mr. Elangovan said that the four centres of excellence planned for various sectors in technical textiles at Bombay Textile Research Association, Mumbai (for geo-textiles); Synthetic and Art Silk Mills’ Research Association, Mumbai (for agro-textiles); Northern India Textile Research Association (for protective textiles) and South India Textile Research Association, Coimbatore (for medical textiles), would be commissioned within a year.

Entrepreneurs

He said that since technical textiles accounted for just 10 per cent of the total textile activities in the country, opportunities were galore for entrepreneurs to invest in knowledge-based and research-oriented activities within the sector.

To facilitate more investment, the Centre had modified the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) to provide an additional 10 per cent capital subsidy for procurement of specified technical textile machineries.

The president of TEA, A Sakthivel, called upon the domestic manufacturers to diversify their activities more into technical textiles considering the increase in usage of products such as health care disposables, surgical dressings, hoardings and fire retardant fabrics over the last few years in the country. S.K. Sundararman, convener (textiles panel) of CII (Coimbatore zone)and Lalit Kaul, the member of Technical Textiles Task Force of CII, New Delhi spoke.