Webinar on Technical Textile 2021

WEBINAR ON TECHNICAL TEXTILE

Our honorable Ms. Smriti Zubin Irani Ji, Minister of Textiles, Information and Broadcasting and Women and Child Development, India from BJP representing Amethi constituency has took many steps to uplift the Textile Industry and has been seen in Conference held for technical textile this year. She is the youngest Minister at the age of 43 from 2016 in India and has launched Apparel Sector Special Package, Support for technical textile, focused on North Eastern Region, introduced Silk Samgra Workshop and Samarth Scheme, created Committee on gender budgeting, made Amendment in POCSO act 2019 and Bhartya Poshan Krishi Kosh. These are the few achievements she achieved since her tenure. One of the most recent event she bestowed upon was “Technical textile-The future of Indian textile industry” on 27th Jan 2021, which was held on WebEx, a video conferencing platform. It was organized by the IMC, chamber of commerce and industry and was preside by many dignitaries from the textile industry. It included diginitaries like Mr. Rajeev Podar, chairman IMC; Mr. Puneet Lalbhai, Executive Director, Arvind Ltd; and Mr. Manoj Patodia, Chairman TEXPROCIL. They all spent their valuable time in this conference to discuss the upcoming market of Technical Textile in India and worldwide. Mr.Podar initiated the conference by stating facts like India is one of the largest producers of textile and apparels and the domestic industry contributes 2% of India’s Total GDP; 7% of industrial output in terms of value; 12% of the country’s Export Earnings and is the second largest employer of the country providing direct employment to nearly 45 million people and approximately 60 million people in allied industry. He then moved on to the importance and growth of technical textile prior to which India has shown its strength in Traditional textile and natural fibers globally and in recent years, man-made fibers and many more. Technical textile accounts for approximately 13% of India’s total textile and apparel market and only 5-10% is consumed, whereas in the advanced countries it is 30 – 70%. Hence National Technical textile Mission has been setup that aims at an average growth rate of 15 – 20% rate to increase the domestic market. He put forward that Technical textile in India is estimated to grow at the rate of 12% per annum in order to achieve 20% annual growth in this sector as a need for proactive approach towards expanding the existing market, promote usage of Technical textile, encourage International collaborations, Investment promotions, and increase awareness among the citizens and institutions of the country. The Key factors to increase this include growing end users in industries like Auto mobile, health care, sports and infrastructure and on-going industrial development; availability of raw material such as cotton, wool, jute and silk along with a strong value chain, low cost labour, power and changing consumer trends. He highlighted the fact that even in Covid 19 lockdown situation textile industry showed its propensity and turned a tradegy into a beautiful opportunity which shows the ability to innovate and rise to the challenge with limited resources and time. India went to zero PPE kits in March 2020 to 2.5 Lakhs a day in sixty days becoming the second largest manufacturer after China. Today India stands to produce 4.5 lakh PPEs and more than 1.5 crore masks a day. After Mr. Podar Sir, Mr. Anant Singhania, Chairmen Industry of Trade Committee, IMC- Chambers of Commerce and Industry, took the lead and continued the conference by presenting facts regarding Technical textile and stating the use of Technical textile present even in even the velcro of your shoe; the sportswear used in gym; the wrinkle free clothes we wear; the masks; medicated stems for hearts treatment and so on.