Indian government announced that the county will soon get its standard size for garments, at the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, recently concluded in Gujarat. Besides this, five major MoUs were signed between Gujarat government and textile giants like Welspun, Chiripal Group, Jindal Group, Natural Texan and GM Textile Park, during the event. Overall 21,889 MoUs were signed by the various industries but the state Government didn’t disclose the total investments.
The summit featured a ‘Textile Conclave’ which was addressed by Smriti Irani, Union Minister of Textiles; Vijay Rupani, CM, Gujarat and top players of Indian textile industry like Balkrishan Goenka – Chairman – Welspun Group and Kulin Lalbhai, ED Arvind Ltd.
Irani shared that Indian textiles and garments industry would benefit a lot with its ‘Size India’ project for apparel measurement which will be India’s own country-specific apparel size.
National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) is in the process to complete this massive exercise with the use of latest technology. It will cover 25,000 people using high-tech 3D whole-body scanners and will cost nearly Rs 30 crore and entail studying a population, aged 15-65 across six cities.
“In the apparel export segment, one of the biggest challenges is that the UK has its size, the US has its size, and Europe has its size of measurement. But, India does not have it (size of apparels, such as 42, 44 and XL). I hereby present the central government’s resolve that ‘Size India’ project will soon be rolled out for the entire country, the first-of-its-kind project in the Indian history.” – Smriti Irani, Minister of Textiles, India
Irani said the Centre will soon embark upon a statistical study to actually categorise the domestic demand of the market so that it becomes a base for strengthening of the industry.
The minister also informed that the central government has allocated over Rs 1,800 crore in the last 4.5 years to Gujarat for up-gradation of technology in the textile sector. “Following this allocation, new investment of Rs 30,000 crore came in the state’s textile industry,” she said.
“Our country has a capacity to cater to huge demands, both domestic and overseas. But, never before in the history of our country was a study done to ascertain the strength and the magnitude of our domestic market,” she said.
Known fashion designers like Anju Modi, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Namrata Joshipura, Gaurang Shah, and Rahul Mishra to showcased their interpretation of ‘Make in India’ during the event.
