Technical Textiles are material and products manufactured primarily for their technical properties and functional requirements rather than for aesthetic characteristics. The scope of use of technical textiles encompasses a wide range of applications 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 healthcare of general public. In India, technical textiles hold immense growth opportunities both for the industry as well as across various applications.
Technical Textiles is the harbinger of many new age applications covering almost all walks of life, and having immense potential for bringing in higher level of productivity, efficiency, cost economics; and offering innovative solutions to many engineering and general applications. In addition to their commercial use, technical textiles have been identified for mandatory use across various important missions, programmes and schemes of the Government of India. Some of these are National Health Mission, Jal Jivan Mission, National Horticulture Mission and infrastructure development of highways, railways and ports. In order to boost a rapid growth of the technical textile segment in the country, the government has taken following major initiatives:
207 technical textiles items have been brought under separate head in the Harmonised System of Nomenclature (HSN) code under the Foreign Trade Policy.
With a view to derive the benefits of technical textiles in various fields of applications, currently 92 application areas have been identified for mandatory use across 10 Central Ministries/Departments. So far, mandatory use notifications have been issued for 68 applications.
Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has developed standards for 348 technical textiles products.
On request from the Industry, Ministry of Textiles has included 6 additional courses for technical textiles in its Skill Development Programme called Samarth.
The work of conducting fresh baseline survey on technical textiles sector has been given to IIT Delhi.
The Ministry has issued Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order dated 23.10.2019, prescribing minimum local purchase content for technical textiles items in 10 segments for government procurement.
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 crores by the year 2020-21.
This information was given by the Union Minister of Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani, in written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
