Firms eye Gujarat for medical textile units

In what could give fillip to Gujarat government's efforts to develop technical textiles, couple of international and national firms have evinced interest in setting up manufacturing plant in medical textiles.

According to state government sources, an Israeli company and Pune-based Garware Nylon have been scouting land in Gujarat for setting plants in medical technical textiles. "The companies would be investing anywhere between Rs 100 crore and Rs 200 crore for the technical textiles plant," said a senior government official.

Moreover, talks are also on with Sanand GIDC for buying land at current jantri prices. The GIDC in Sanand is believed to conducive for medical textiles due to improved infrastructure, said sources. Once implemented, the medical textiles projects will add value to the already 35 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 4,500 crore signed in technical textiles in the recent Vibrant Summit 2011.

Earlier, the state government had also received investment commitments in technical textiles from European major TenCate and Shanghai-based American Hygienics Corporation.

While the former combines textile technology with related chemical processes to develop specialist and protective materials for fire-fighting clothing, and strong, lightweight materials in aircrafts, the latter manufacturers baby wipes, wet wipe applications and other personal care products in the Far East.

Apart from investment commitments, technical textiles in Gujarat has been receiving boost consistently through R&D initiatives as well.

For instance, being set up in association with German lab, Geoscope, the Ahmedabad Textile Industry's Research Association (ATIRA) is set to unveil Asia's first testing and certification laboratory in geotextiles at its campus in Ahmedabad.

The laboratory is being set up as part of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in technical textiles products at ATIRA. The CoE is being set up at a project cost of Rs 250 crore, which will include facilities in verticals other than geotextiles as well.