The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI)â€â€in association with Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA) as a Knowledge Partnerâ€â€organised an innovation contest ‘InnoTex 2018’. Innovation applications were sought in the field of design, method, process, product and cost in ginning, spinning, weaving, knitting, processing, garmenting and technical textiles from all over India and abroad.
CITI received an overwhelming response from the innovators as well as from the industry. A total of 10 innovations were shortlisted after two rounds of jury evaluation. The final round of the Innovation Contest was organised along with CITI Diamond Jubilee Celebrations – Global Textiles Conclave 2018 on November 28, at 10:00 am at hall no. 4, Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
Innovators made their final presentations before the eminent jury members comprising: Shekhar Agarwal, Vice Chairman, RSWM Limited; Bharat Bhushan Modi, Vice President (Weaving), D’Décor Home Fabrics; Neelabh Dalmia, Director, GHCL; and Professor RS Rengasamy, Department of Textile Technology, IIT Delhi, the stalwarts of textile and apparel industry and top academia. Towards the end, three winners were selected.
Sanjay K Jain, Chairman CITI delivered the keynote address and shared his thoughts on how the idea of organising an Innovation Contest came and in fact, it was the first time in the history of Indian textile and clothing Industry that such a contest was organised for innovations in the textile sector.
Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation presented trophies to the finalists of InnoTex 2018 at the valedictory session of CITI diamond jubilee celebrations. R Pothiraj received the first prize for his innovation on ‘32 per cent Reduction in Energy Consumption in Running Airjet Looms’. Dhivagar got the second prize and Raj Kumar got the third prize for their innovations in ‘Zero Defect of Spandex Miss Plating in Knitted Fabric’ and ‘Computerised Vertical Embroidery Machine’, respectively.
The Union Minister Suresh Prabhu also congratulated NITRA for its excellent work in InnoTex 2018 Contest as Knowledge Partner.