New Delhi: The Ministry of Textiles cleared 15 R&D projects worth around Rs 32.25 crore across key strategic areas such as specialty fibre, protective textiles, high-performance textiles, geotextiles, medical textiles, sustainable textiles, and textiles for building materials during the 5th Mission Steering Group (MSG) meeting held under the chairmanship of Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce and Industry and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution here on Friday.

While addressing the meeting, Goyal said that leading textile manufacturers and institutes should come together to indigenously develop strategic and high-value technical textile products, with the support of the NTTM. Robust outreach exercise is required to attract R&D proposals in machinery and equipment across major textile machinery manufacturing hubs in India, he said.

Inter-Ministerial collaboration is required to document and utilize existing and updated technologies for wider usage in the nation building process, especially in the areas of sustainable technical textiles. Existing beneficiaries of NTTM such as Premier Institutes and Research bodies need to connect with other institutes for wider awareness, benefits and optimal utilization of NTTM Scheme across India, he added.

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 finalized on priority targeting aspiring innovators, entrepreneurs and young scientists, he said.

Technical Textile Machinery and Equipment development has been a major challenge which needs collaborative interventions from Government, Industry and Academia, including commercialization of the developed machines. 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 needs to be utilized the industry at its fullest, he further emphasized.

Goyal also reviewed the progress of previously sanctioned R&D projects under the NTTM during the meeting. In addition, the way forward and action plan for propelling India’s technical textiles sector was discussed and recommended including wider field-level outreach programmes for research in fundamental, applied, and machine development across TRAs, and identification of specialized skill requirements in the sector. /BI/