Smriti Irani releases HSN codes for technical textiles

Union Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani released HSN codes for technical textiles during National Conclave on Technical Textiles, jointly organised by the Ministry of Textiles and FICCI, at Taj Hotel, Mumbai on January 29, 2019.

While speaking to the august gathering, Textile Minister said that this step will give a major boost to the technical textile sector in India and it is expected that this step of Government will act as a catalyst for achieving the market size of technical textiles up to Rs 2 lakh crore by 2020-21. 

To monitor the data of import and export and in order to provide any financial support to the technical textile sector, the first step was to recognise and notify separately the technical textiles items spread from chapter 1 to 99 of HSN classification book. In absence of clear classification of technical textiles, there was a confusion, and many genuine manufacturers were not getting various incentives being allowed to the technical textile sector by the Central and State Governments. To fulfill the long-standing demand of industry to declare technical textile items as a separate category, Government of India has notified 207 HSN codes as technical textiles.

She thanked Mohan Kavrie of Supreme Nonwovens Group and RD Udeshi of Reliance Industries for helping the Ministry in drafting the codes.

Irani said that the Ministry has set up Focus Incubation Centres to help the investors to enter into technical textiles. "We have also focused on incubation centres and set up 11 such centres in the country. Under the aegis of textile ministry we have undertaken 40 geotextile projects for roads, water reservoirs and ensured that our farmers embrace agro-tech at 54 agro-tech demonstration centres and distribute kits, which basically tells them how to use agro-tech in their day-to-day working across the country," the minister added. 

The Textile Minister added that about 530 prototype campus has already been developed under the Ministry in the past four years and eight centres of excellence (CoEs) has already been set up at the cost of close to a Rs 140 crore.

Irani added that the Ministry had constituted a committee under VK Saraswat, Member of NITI Aayog, to give a recommendation on R&D plan for the future growth of the industry and preparing a way forward for high-performance speciality fibres.