Date:17/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/17/stories/2008101750030200.htm

Tamil Nadu

‘On site training’ planned for villagers

Staff Reporter

Photo: M. Balaji

With interest: Foreign buyers having a look at knitwear products manufactured in the country at the 27th India Knit Fair in Tirupur. –

Tirupur: The Apparel Export Promotion Council will introduce a scheme to provide ‘on site’ training to rural people in the textile clusters in the country to develop more skilled workforce needed to achieve the targeted $20 billion textile exports by 2012, according to Rakesh Vaid, chairman, AEPC.

Inaugurating the 27th India Knit Fair here on Wednesday, he said that the project would be launched on a pilot basis at the knitwear cluster of Tirupur at an outlay of Rs 5 lakh, within a month.

The project cost would be borne by the AEPC Foundation for Rural Development.

Free of cost

He said that women folks in select villages of Tirupur would be trained free-of-cost on embroidery and other skills/trade through short camps, to be organised with the help of respective civic bodies.Experts from Apparel Training and Design Centre in Tirupur would act as resource persons.

“We will distribute a training kit having fabric samples and tools required for embroidery and knitting to each of the beneficiaries.

He said that to facilitate growth of knitwear industry in Tirupur, the AEPC would conduct “dedicated” seminars on fashion development, fashion forecast and productivity enhancement techniques.

To help enhance the country’s share in niche textile market segments, the council would conduct ‘mega fair’ in African continent to explore the opportunities in countries like South Africa and Botswana.

Capacity building

V.K. Singh, secretary general, AEPC, reiterated the need for carrying out capacity building exercises in textile clusters on a larger scale, instead of making cosmetic changes in the infrastructure front, to augment apparel and clothing exports from the country.

A Sakthivel, president, Tirupur Exporters Association, spoke.

Private garment manufacturers, textile associations, banks, fashion institutes and Textiles Committee of Union Ministry of Textiles, had set up stalls at the fair.