– Arnab Sen, Asst Professor, NIFT, Bhopal
The stability and sustained growth of the Indian textile industry in 2013, amidst the economic crisis that the world has been facing especially in the manufacturing sector, revealed that the industry has gained the strength and maturity over the years to withstand the fluctuations in global trade to any extent.
In order to manifest this stability in a wider perspective, it is time for the textile industry of India to look beyond commodity textiles, limited to wears and furnishings, towards technical textiles.
There lies an unending scope of growth in this sector, the demand being on a constant rise in the areas of medical, geo- and architectural textiles, generated chiefly out of the extensive need for biodegradable materials. The faster the underlying potential is exploited, the more gainful the Indian textile industry can be!
The focus in 2014 thus needs to be a boost in concerted efforts from the industry and the R&D centres towards development of newer biodegradable fibres of natural origin and their conversion into technical textiles.