The 5th Mission Steering Group chaired by Union minister Piyush Goyal on Friday cleared 15 R&D projects worth around Rs 32.25 crore in key strategic areas such as speciality fibre, protective textiles, high-performance textiles, geotextiles, medical textiles, sustainable textiles and textiles for building materials.

The projects have been approved by the government under the National Technical Textiles Mission. "Encouraging young engineering minds to pursue technical textiles in India is the need of the hour. A broad guideline under start-up scheme was discussed and may be finalised on priority targeting aspiring innovators, entrepreneurs and young scientists," an official statement said.

Addressing the meeting, textiles minister Goyal said leading textile manufacturers and institutes should come together to indigenously develop strategic and high-value technical textile products with the support of the National Technical Textiles Mission.

Among these 15 R&D (Research & Development) projects, 7 projects of speciality fibres, 2 from protective textiles, 2 from high-performance textiles, 1 from geotextiles, 1 from medical textiles, 1 from sustainable textile, 1 from textiles for building materials were approved.

Technical textile machinery and equipment development has been a major challenge which needs collaborative interventions from the government, industry and academia, including commercialisation of the developed machines, Goyal said.

The general guidelines for indigenous development of machines and equipment in the application areas of technical textiles under NTTM is a strong-foot forward and need to be utilised in the industry at its fullest, he further emphasised.

The minister urged premier public and private academic and engineering institutes and industries to apply under the education and internship guidelines already launched under the National Technical Textiles Mission on a priority basis.

He also reviewed the progress of previously sanctioned R&D projects under NTTM during the meeting. In addition, the way forward and action plan for propelling India's technical textiles sector were discussed and recommended.

This includes wider field-level outreach programmes for research in fundamental, applied, and machine development across TRAs, premier institutes and industry associations; development of new BIS standards; enact new quality control orders (QCOs); rationalization of HSN codes; mandation of technical textiles' items across line ministries and departments; and identification of specialised skill requirements in the sector.

Image Courtesy: HW News