The Union Ministry of Textiles is in talks with the Japanese Government and some companies in the U.S. to support the Indian textile industry with technology for specialty fiber and related products. Technology is important for specialty fiber.
Two committees have been formed in regard to this:
One for specialty fiber
One to see how to take the segment forward
Based on the reports submitted by both the committees, the Ministry had notified 207 products that classify as ‘technical textiles’, mainly for export and import purposes. For the Ministry to include more products, the industry must a list, the number of products notified can be expanded regularly.
The Centers of Excellence in the country for technical textiles is to initiate the process to select some of the prototypes developed so far and give an industry connect to these products. The Ministry had consulted several other ministries, departments, and State Governments on technical textiles used in several applications across sectors. Read more
The 46th India International Knit Fair was recently organised in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppur by the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) and India Knit Fair Association (IKFA) in the backdrop of the ongoing US-China trade war, according to IKFA chairman A Sakthivel. Exhibitors from Tamil Nadu, Delhi region, Maharashtra, Telangana and Punjab participated in the fair.
The three-day fair, which concluded on May 17, had 36 stalls put up by exporters, according to Indian media reports.
Exports of knitwear products from Tiruppur is likely to cross ₹30,000 crore during this fiscal from ₹26,300 crore in 2018-19, Shaktivel had said early this month.
Exports during April 2019 crossed ₹4,400 crore, which is a very encouraging sign, he had said.
Moreover, India has the strength in raw materials, like cotton and man-made fibres, he pointed out. (DS). This article is first published by Fibre2Fashion
A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by hand or by using only simple tools. It is a traditional main sector of craft and applies to a wide range of creative and design activities that are related to making things with one’s hands and skill, including work with textiles, moldable and rigid materials, paper, plant fibers, etc. There are many development works has been done under various Government schemes.
‘Under Pehchan’ initiative,22.40 lakhs applications were received and 17.83 lakhs I.D. cards have been distributed. This initiative was launched on 7th October 2016 to register and provide Aadhar based Identity Cards to the Handicrafts Artisans for better access to the benefits of the schemes. New Mega Clusters have been sanctioned at Bareilly, Lucknow, and Kutch with an outlay of Rs. 28.5 crores each and at J&K with an outlay of Rs. 20.00 crores and activities underway.
In the project of linking Textiles with Tourism, Raghurajpur in Odisha and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh were taken up for overall development as tourist destinations.
Special projects have been sanctioned for Integrated Development and Promotion of Handicrafts in Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Bihar, Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) to benefit 1,58,805 artisans.
New Urban Haats sanctioned at a project cost of Rs. 3.00 crores each, at Mammallapuram(Chennai) and Eluru (Andhra Pradesh).
Programmes Conducted and Artisans Benefitted during Last Four and Half Years:
Hastkala Sahyog Shivirs organized at 302 places all over the country, in which 73291 artisans participated. 5155 tool kits distributed, 814
MUDRA Loan sanctioned, 695 marketing events were organized during the camp during the financial year 2017-18.
Handicrafts Awards to 23 Shilp Gurus and 65 National Awardees (including 15 Women artisans) have been given to Handicraft artisans from 2014 to 2016.
The new component of Margin Money has been approved in the month of October 2018, introduced for implementation for the benefit of artisans availing Mudra Loan @ 20% of the sanctioned loan amount subject to a maximum of Rs.10,000.
The 8th edition of HOME EXPO INDIA 2019 opened at India Expo Center and Mart, Greater Noidatoday. The three-day exhibition has been organized by the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH).
Select exhibitors, premium products and invited buyers are the attention of this year’s home expo. Buyers from more than 50 countries including USA, Europe, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, UAE, Lebanon, Iran, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Vietnam and Romania will be visiting the home expo.
Home Expo India covers sectors with maximum thrust and growth potential in home décor, furnishing, furniture, flooring, and textiles. About 500 companies in permanent marts will be exhibiting their collection under these categories at the state of the art India Expo Centre & Mart from 16 – 18 April, 2019.
During Home Expo India, a thematic display of the North Eastern region and other artisans will also attract the visitors.
Exports of furniture and accessories grew by about 27.13%, houseware and decorative 15.19%, home furnishing, flooring and home textiles 6.3% last year. Handicrafts exports during the year 2018-19 was Rs. 26,590.25 crores [prov.] registering a growth of 15.46% over the previous year.
EPCH is the nodal export promotion body for handicrafts in India and plays an important role with the main objective of boosting trade in handicrafts and also projects India’s image in the global market as a reliable supplier. This article is first published by PIB.
The Minister of Textiles, Smriti Irani, visited the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in New Delhi on March 5 to launch three programmes there: the Indian textiles and craft repository, Design Innovation and Incubation (DII), and VisionNXT.
Irani launched three new projects on Tuesday at NIFT in New Delhi aiming to aid the handloom textile sector and India’s fashion industry as a whole. One of the projects, the Indian textiles and craft repository, will develop a virtual textile museum for both indigenous and luxury crafts. It will be an online library of textile related information and will have digitized archives from textile museums, weaver’s centers, and resource centers across the country.
Another new project, the Design Innovation and Incubation (DII) is designed to help support young entrepreneurs, start-ups, and artisans with NIFT students and alumni. The organization is designed to facilitate collaboration between artists and give a platform to young creatives.
The VisionNXT initiative will create an India-specific fashion forecasting service that will be able to predict upcoming fashion trends based on national demographics and data. Irani had already spoken about the project at a recent appearance at NIFT in Chennai and, on Tuesday, she brought it to the capital.
Speaking about the project, Irani said: “It will help handloom sector in production of handloom products as per the market requirement in terms of trends, design and colour forecast,” as reported by the Press Trust of India. Irani also inaugurated a renovated Handloom Haat during her visit. Article is first published on FashionNetwork
Textiles Minister Smriti Irani today inaugurated the refurbished Handloom Haat at Janpath in New Delhi. The main objective of the Haat is to provide infrastructure support to handloom agencies to augment their sales of handloom products and to showcase the exquisite variety of products produced all over the country.
To make the building of Haat more attractive, the refurbishing work was taken up in 2018. Besides, Mrs Irani also launched the three projects which are Trend Forecasting, Design Innovation Incubator and Textiles and Crafts Repository. These projects are being set up in the building by National Institute of Fashion Technology, NIFT which will help handloom sector in production of handloom products as per market requirement in terms of trends, design and colour forecast.
Make products as per market requirement :Textile Minister
New Delhi: Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani Tuesday launched three projects of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) including VisionNXT, a trend forecasting initiative. The VisionNxt initiative will create an indigenous fashion forecasting service which endeavours to design seasonal directions for the country, the minister said here.
The proposed service is based on the premise that fashion is a dynamic industry which depends on seasonal trends and forecast for future course of action.
“It will help handloom sector in production of handloom products as per the market requirement in terms of trends, design and colour forecast,” she added.
The other two projects are — Indian textiles and craft repository and Design Innovation and Incubation (DII).
The repository will develop a virtual museum of textiles, and textile crafts, a designer archive, indigenous case studies, and also act as an aggregator of online information on related research.
Virtual museum will have digitised resource of traditional archived pieces from museums, resource centres, weavers’ service centres.
Raghvendra Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Govt of India on Thursday said that the government is likely to consider bringing mandatory standards for technical textiles items where Indian standards are available. This will not only provide fillip to Make in India in technical textiles but will also improve the quality in areas like health, environment, security, and safety.
To fulfil long-standing demand of industry to declare technical textile items as separate category, the government has notified 207 HSN codes as technical textiles
Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani on Tuesday released HSN codes for technical textiles that is expected to act as a catalyst for achieving the market size of up to Rs 2 lakh crore by 2020-21.
“The HSN codes for technical textiles is expected to benefit 900 million farmers in the country. It is a step that will help us grow to over Rs 2 lakh crore in the tech textile sector,” the minister said after releasing HSN codes for technical textiles at the National Conclave on Technical Textiles here.
To fulfill long-standing demand of industry to declare technical textile items as separate category, the government has notified 207 HSN codes as technical textiles. It will give major boost to the sunrise sector, she said.
In order to help the potential investors to enter into technical textiles, ministry has set up Focus Incubation Centres (FIC), Irani said.
“We have also focused on incubation centers and set up 11 such centres in the country. Under the aegis of textile ministry we have undertaken 40 geo textile projects for roads, water reservoirs and ensured that our farmers embraces agro tech at 54 agro tech demonstration centres and distribute kits, which basically tells them how to use agro tech in their day-to-day working across the country,” the minister added.
The minister said, around 530 prototype campus has already been developed under the textile ministry in the past 4 years and 8 centres of excellence has already been set up at the cost of close to a Rs 140 crore.
“We have already trained over 22,000 Indians only in this area of technical textiles in the past 3-4 years,” she added.
But our capacity to grow and touch the sky is only possible with the industry partnership and farmer participation, she said.
“In one such participation, we will be setting up an innovation centre for technical textile in the hub of the national capital next month with the support of the industry,” she added.
The ministry had constituted a committee under V K Saraswat to give recommendation on research and development plan for the future growth of technical textile and specially preparing a way forward for high perform ace speciality fibres in India, the minister informed.
The report on technical textiles highlights that one of the biggest challenges is the imports of speciality fibres, Irani said, adding that “we are the affordable innovators of the world.” This Article first published by The Hindu Businessline.
While Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency Amethi does not have a movie hall, since Republic Day, a ‘mobile digital theatre’ has been screening the movie Uri: The Surgical Strike for the public here free of cost.
The screenings, currently held four times a day at a spice factory, are the initiative of Union Minister Smriti Irani, who had contested the 2014 Assembly elections from Amethi, and lost. The first such screening of the film on Republic Day had begun with a video conference with the minister. The official poster also carries her photograph.
The mobile threatre showing the film — which is based on the ‘surgical strike’ undertaken by India in Pakistan in 2017 — has been set up by Delhi-based company ‘Picture Time’.
“There is no working movie theatre in Amethi and there was a demand from the public to view this movie. So Smriti Irani arranged for the screenings and personally addressed the audience through video-conferencing on Republic Day,” said Vishuv Mishra, general secretary of the BJP’s youth wing, who has been given responsibility of coordinating the screening.
He added that the mobile theatre can accomodate 150 people at a time, and that there are at least four screenings a day — 9.20 am, 1.30 pm, 5 pm and 8 pm. On January 25, college students in Ramganj area were also shown the movie.
Party leaders claimed that so far, around 2,000 people — with an average of around 600 a day — have attended the screenings.
“Our message is especially to the youth, to tell them about the sacrifices of the country’s soldiers during the surgical strike, which is being propagated as a lie by Congress people. We are sure that the youth of Amethi will do a surgical strike on Congress president Rahul Gandhi by defeating him or any member of his family for the lies that they spread,” said Mishra, adding that they are now scouting for private premises to screen the film, for which a generator has also been arranged.
Congress MLC Deepak Singh said the move was an attempt to get votes, with Lok Sabha polls round the corner. “It is not for the first time that soldiers have shown their courage on the border, but it is the first time someone is trying to take credit of their courage and seek votes in their name. The public of Amethi is aware of the truth and will not be misguided by some movie shows.”
BJP spokesperson Govind Singh said, “Congress has done nothing for Amethi, that is why they are troubled each time some work is done for the people. There was a demand and Smriti Irani took the initiative to bring the movie to the doorsteps of people.”
In her message aired to the public before the first screening on Republic Day, Irani had said, “Didi (referring to herself) ka to kaam hai sewa karna…Naujawan prerit hon bhartiya sena ke shaurya ko dekh kar, yogdan ko dekh kar, maa bharti ke sapoot kaise ghar baar tyaag kar, apne praano ki aahuti dete hain, yeh is film mein dikhaaya jata hai (It is didi’s job to do service…The youth are encouraged to see the courage and contribution of the Army as the movie shows how sons of the soil sacrifice everything)…” This news story first published by Indian Express
Ministry of Textiles Updates 
