New Delhi, Sept 29 (KNN) Ministry of Textiles on Thursday approved 18 Research & Development (R&D) projects worth Rs 46.74 crore across key strategic areas of Geotech, Protech, Indutech, Sustainable Textiles, Sportech, Smart E-Textiles, Meditech segments during the 7th MSG meeting.

Chairing the meeting, Union Minister of Textiles, Piyush Goyal said that Industry and Institute’s pro-active and robust engagement is essential for the indigenous development of technical textiles in India.

Among these 18 R&D projects, 14 are high value Projects, 3 are Prototype Grant projects and 1 is Ideation Grant project.

The projects cover different application areas of technical textiles including 1 Projects from Geotech, 2 of Protech, 2 Indutech, 2 Sportech, 5 Sustainable Textiles, 3 Meditech, 3 Smart & E Textiles and 1 Geotextiles were approved.

The approved projects were led by institutes and research bodies including BTRA, ATIRA, IIT Delhi, IIT Jammu, NIT Jalandhar, IIT Kharagpur, CSIR New Delhi, IIT Madras, among others, as per the official statement.

The Union Minister reviewed the progress of different components of National Technical Textiles Mission including review of sanctioned R&D products, R&D projects in Mission mode, Formation of a committee for Startups in Technical Textiles under GREAT Guidelines, Outreach activities and events including 6th Edition of MOT-FICCI-BIS National conclave on Standards & Regulations and Meditex conference in July and September 2023, respectively.

Emphasis should be on R&D for globally highly imported technical textiles items, apart from import-dependent technical textiles items and specialty fibres in India, he further added.

Besides, the progress on the Education, Training & Skill Development front was also reviewed by the Union Minister wherein 26 applications from 15 Public and 11 Private institutes valuing Rs 151.02 crore were approved for introducing papers, procuring laboratory infrastructure and training of trainers across different application areas of technical textiles. 

Senior officials from NITI Aayog, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Ministry of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Railways, and members from other Ministries, industry members attended the meeting.  (KNN Bureau)