Cabinet approves National Technical Textiles Mission

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the National Technical Textiles Mission with an outlay of Rs 1,480 crore to position India as a leading manufacturer of technical fabrics that are mostly used in industrial applications.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in the budget on February 1 announced a proposal to set up a National Technical Textiles Mission with a four-year implementation period from 2020-21 to 2023-24.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani told reporters here.

Technical textiles are material and products made primarily for their technical properties and functional requirements. They have wide usage such as agro-textiles, medical textiles, geo-textiles, protection-textiles, industrial-textiles, sports-textiles and many other usages.

Use of technical textiles have benefits of increased productivity in agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture fields, better protection of military, para-military, police and security forces, stronger and sturdier transportation infrastructure for highways, railways, ports and airports and in improving hygiene and health-care of general public.

In terms of the projections of the last baseline survey on technical textiles submitted in 2015, the market size in India for the year 2017-18 is projected as Rs 1,16,217 crore.

Although there is no projection in the last baseline study with regard to the projections for the 2020-21, taking into account the current trend of growth and various initiatives of the Government, domestic market size of the technical textiles is expected to cross Rs 2 lakh crore by the year 2020-21.