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The Government said the Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (TUFS) that provides Plan support for textiles through interest reimbursement and capital subsidy will be extended during the 12th Five-Year Plan period.
Inaugurating the first International Exhibition and Conference on Technical Textiles on Thursday, the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry and Textiles, Mr Anand Sharma, said the textile sector remains core to the Indian economy and the Government is committed to its all-round development.
He said the emerging sector of technical textiles has been identified as one of the thrust areas of textiles development.
The Indian technical textiles industry is projected to grow to Rs 1.4 trillion ($31.4 billion) by 2016-17, with healthcare and infrastructure sectors accounting for a major chunk of the consumption of technical textiles, according to a research paper released during the inaugural function.
The technical textiles industry market was estimated at Rs 570 billion ($12.67 billion) in 2010-11, said the FICCI-Wazir Advisors-Ernst & Young Knowledge joint paper.
Technical textiles include textiles for automotive applications, medical textiles, geo-textiles, agro-textiles used for crop protection and protective clothing for fire fighters, bullet-proof jackets and space suits.
“Four more Centres of Excellence for non-woven textiles will be set up, in addition to the existing four, to give a boost to production of technical textiles. One of them relating to sports textiles will be based in Mumbai,” said the Minister.
These centres would be equipped with internationally accredited testing labs, training facilities for trainers and technicians from the industry, IT-enabled information centre and other requisite support to the technical textile entrepreneurs.
In order to promote technical textiles in the country and to address the growth bottlenecks, the Ministry of Textiles recently launched the Technology Mission on Technical Textiles for a period of five years (2010-11 to 2014-15).
Mr Sharma said two new missions aimed at standardisation of testing laboratories and boosting marketing strength will be announced shortly.
The Ministry of Textiles expects the technical textiles sector in India to grow by 11 per cent year-on-year to attain a market size of $14.8 billion by 2012-13 from the current size of $9.9 billion.
Maharashtra textile policy
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr Prithviraj Chavan, said the State will soon launch a new Textile Policy to boost valued added production in the State.
Currently only 25 per cent of cotton grown in Maharashtra is processed within the State, while the rest goes to other States having a more vibrant textile industry.
The first International Conference-cum-Exhibition named TECHNOTEX 2011 was jointly organised by the Ministry of Textiles, the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI).
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