India Size survey: NIFT to float global tender for hi-tech machines

Three heavy-duty, high-tech whole body scanners would be used for India Size survey for which the the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) will soon float a global tender, a top official said.
The National Sizing Survey will sample 25,000 people using these gadgets in six cities -- Kolkata (East), Mumbai (West), New Delhi (North), Hyderabad (Central India), Bengaluru (South) and Shillong (North-East).
"These are really huge machines and currently there are no Indian manufacturer. So, we are going for a global tender. It is under legal vetting and will be floated on return," NIFT Director General Sarada Muraleedharan told PTI.

The survey which will begin soon, will cost nearly Rs 30 crore and the project would be conducted over a period of 2-3 years.
It seeks to come up with a standardised India size chart for ready-made garments, which would then be used by all brands in the country.
3D whole body scanners and computers will extract hundreds of measurements from a scan of a person in a point cloud, Noopur Anand, faculty at NIFT-Delhi and principal investigator of the project, said.

The anthropometric data collected from the sample population, 50 per cent each of male and female, in the age group 15-65 years to create a database will result in a standardised size chart which is representative of the Indian population and can be adopted by the apparel industry, she said.

"Three machines would be installed in three different locations, say a park, mall or other public places, in a city. The machines would then move to the next city to be sampled," Muraleedharan said.
Anand said all metrics of the project have been worked out in microscopic details including how much time a person will spend during his or her sampling.
"The scanning process is completely safe. A person who will be scanned will be wearing a body suit. We will even go to festival venues to get a more holistic sampling so as to reflect diverse ethnicities in our database," she added.

Of the Rs 30 crore to be spent on the project, the Textile Ministry will give Rs 21 crore and the NIFT will pitch in with about Rs 9 crore, the NIFT DG said, adding, the database created as part of this project will be confidential and secure.
"The final outcome will be in numerical value. We don't know yet, if we would be having just a single numerical marker or more than one. Also, about 120 different anthropometric elements, including, height, weight, waist-size, hip-size, bust-size, would be included in the survey," Anand said.
"These scanning machines are really heavy-duty, weighing about 200 kgs and so we are waiting for them to be made available. Also, our other NIFT campuses, and local administrations in these six regions will coordinate with us," she said.

The findings of the study will impact various other sectors like automobile, aerospace, fitness and sport, art and computer gaming where insights from this data can produce ergonomically designed products which are suited for the Indian population.
Once a uniform India size is arrived at, "even foreign brands in India would also carry it," Rajesh Shah, the chairman in the Board of Governors of the NIFT, said .
"Besides, our diaspora can then also order any wear based on that standard size," he said.
In India, either the US or the UK system of Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large has been used, and people then go for fitting accordingly, the NIFT director general said.

Till date 14 countries have successfully completed national sizing surveys, including the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Korea, China and Australia.