Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce and Industry and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Piyush Goyal said that Industry and Institute’s pro-active and robust engagement is essential for the indigenous development of technical textiles in India, while chairing the 7th Meeting of the Mission Steering Group (MSG) of National Technical Textiles Mission in New Delhi today.

Ministry of Textiles approved 18 R&D projects worth INR 46.74 crores across key strategic areas of Geotech, Protech, Indutech, Sustainable Textiles, Sportech, Smart E-Textiles, Meditech segments during the 7th MSG meeting.

Among these 18 R&D projects, 14 are high value Projects, 3 are Prototype Grant projects and 1 is Ideation Grant project. The projects cover different application areas of technical textiles including 1 Projects from Geotech, 2 of Protech, 2 Indutech, 2 Sportech, 5 Sustainable Textiles, 3 Meditech, 3 Smart & E Textiles and 1 Geotextiles were approved. The approved projects were led by institutes and research bodies including BTRA, ATIRA, IIT Delhi, IIT Jammu, NIT Jalandhar, IIT Kharagpur, CSIR New Delhi, IIT Madras, among others.

The Union Minister reviewed the progress of different components of National Technical Textiles Mission including review of sanctioned R&D products, R&D projects in Mission mode, Formation of a committee for Startups in Technical Textiles under GREAT Guidelines, Outreach activities and events including 6th Edition of MOT-FICCI-BIS National conclave on Standards & Regulations and Meditex conference in July and September 2023, respectively.

Emphasis should be on R&D for globally highly imported technical textiles items, apart from import-dependent technical textiles items and specialty fibres in India, he further added.

Besides, the progress on the Education, Training & Skill Development front was also reviewed by the Union Minister wherein 26 applications from 15 Public and 11 Private institutes valuing INR 151.02 Crores were approved for introducing papers, procuring laboratory infrastructure and training of trainers across different application areas of technical textiles. 

Senior officials from NITI Aayog, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Ministry of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Expenditure, Department of Higher Education, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and members from other Ministries, and eminent members from the industry attended the meeting.

Technical textiles R&D approvals advance indigenous development, funding projects and curriculum expansion to bolster domestic capacity. Ministry of Textiles approved 18 R&D projects under the National Technical Textiles Mission, combining high-value R&D, prototype and ideation grants across Geotech, Protech, Indutech, Sportech, Sustainable Textiles, Smart & E-Textiles, and Meditech, led by public research institutes to promote indigenous development and reduce import dependence. The Ministry also approved education, training and skill-development proposals to introduce academic papers, procure laboratory infrastructure and train trainers to support workforce capacity.