The textiles ministry has identified South India Textile Research Association (SITRA) based in Coimbatore for development into a centre of excellence for production of medical textiles products (Meditech). The government would grant Rs 10 crore to set up the necessary facilities, including internationally accredited testing lab, training facilities, IT enabled information center and video-conferencing facility, a senior textile ministry official told FE .
This maiden effort is part of the ministry?s strategy to provide one-stop infrastructure support for the promotion of technical textiles, which have an estimated market potential of Rs 30,000 crore by the end of 2008-09. Coimbatore has been selected as it has a large number of hospitals and several textile units throughout Tamil Nadu are already active players in medical textiles.
The upcoming center is likely to operate successfully helping entrepreneurs to produce items with existing machinery and with minimum investment. The SITRA centre would be followed by three more – The Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA) for promotion of protective textiles, the Mumbai Textile Research Association for geo-Textiles, and Synthetic and Art Silk Mills Research Association (SASMIRA) and Man-made Textile Association for agro-textiles.
To promote medical textiles, the SITRA centre would go a step further to invite international experts to create awareness among local entrepreneurs about various products by means of seminars and workshops for the local industry. At the same time, to expand the limited database of technical textiles, the government has engaged ICRA Management Consultancy Services (IMaCS) to conduct a baseline survey of the segment. The report of the IMaCS would be available next month.
Textile minister Shankersinh Vaghela told FE , ?The government has chalked out an action plan to promote technical textiles which is an emerging area for investment in the country and has provided opportunity to conventional textile manufacturers to diversify into niche knowledge-based activity.? Being less competitive and more profitable than conventional textiles, the $107 billion global technical textile industry is expected to grow to $127 billion by 2010.
Vaghela expressed concern about India having a meager 4% share in this market, though it is the second largest textile economy after China which accounts for 20 % of the total textile activity. To facilitate investments in the area, the government has included major machinery required for technical textiles in the list of items with concessional custom duties in the modified Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) this year.
