Centre approves National Technical Textiles Mission

To promote technical textiles in the country, the Central government has approved the proposal for the creation of the National Technical Textiles Mission (NTTM) for a period of four years (2020-21 to 2023-24) with an outlay of Rs 1,480 crore, said Union Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani in Lok Sabha.

While replying to a question–whether any steps have been taken by the Government to promote the technical textile sector in the country? asked by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Ujjain Anil Firojiya, Textile Minister in a written reply stated that the distribution of funds will be Rs 1,000 crore for Research Innovation and Development, Rs 50 crore for promotion and market development, Rs 400 crore for education, training and skilling and Rs 10 crore for export promotion and balance Rs 20 crore for administrative expenses.

According to an official release, the focus of the Mission is for developing on the usage of technical textiles in various flagship missions, programmes of the country including strategic sectors. The mission shall work for holistic development of entire technical textile sector on pan-India basis.

“The focus of the mission will be on the use of technical textiles in agriculture, aquaculture, dairy, poultry, etc. Jal Jivan Mission; Swachch Bharat Mission; Ayushman Bharat will bring an overall improvement in cost economy, water and soil conservation, better agricultural productivity and higher income to farmers per acre of land holding in addition to promotion of manufacturing and exports activities in India. The use of geo-textiles in highways, railways and ports will result in robust infrastructure, reduced maintenance cost and higher life cycle of the infrastructure assets,” an official release stated.

“Promotion of innovation amongst young engineering /technology/ science graduates is proposed to be taken up by the mission along with creation of innovation and incubation centres and promotion of ‘start-up’ and ventures’. The research output will be reposited with a ‘Trust’ with the government for easy and assessable proliferation of the knowledge thus gained through research innovation and development activities,” it stated.

A sub-component of the research will focus on the development of biodegradable technical textiles materials, particularly for agro-textiles, geotextiles and medical textiles. It will also develop suitable equipment for environmentally sustainable disposal of used technical textiles, with emphasis on safe disposal of medical and hygiene wastes.

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

Six courses on for skill development in Technical Textiles sector have been on-boarded on National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) for providing training in the sector, the release said. A technical textile is a textile manufactured for non-aesthetic purposes such as automotive applications, medical textiles, geotextiles, agro-textiles, and protective clothing.