The 10th Empowered Programme Committee (EPC) meeting of the National Technical Textiles Mission was led by the Secretary of the Ministry of Textiles (MoT) at Udyog Bhawan in New Delhi.
Under the “Grant for Research & Entrepreneurship across Aspiring Innovators in Technical Textiles (GREAT)” program, the committee has accepted four start-ups with grants of approximately US $ 57,000 (Rs. 50 lakhs) each. The three main strategic sectors of medical, industrial, and protective textiles are the focus of the authorised start-up ventures. The names of the mentioned start-ups were not shared in the Ministry’s press release.
In accordance with the “General Guidelines for Enabling of Academic Institutes in Technical Textiles,” the committee has also authorised a grant of roughly US $ 746,000 (Rs. 6.5 crore) to three education institutes for the introduction of technical textile courses. The list of approved institutions includes IIT Indore and NIT Patna. The course curriculum of the new institutes will include courses in sports textiles, protective textiles, geotextiles, and geosynthetics, among other topics.
Additionally, the committee has authorised 12 skill development courses in the areas of medical textiles, protective textiles, mobile textiles, and agricultural textiles. All focus groups in the technical textiles value chain are to receive training from the courses, which were created by three textile research associations (SITRA, NITRA, and SASMIRA).
