Union Textile Ministry Likely To Play A Collaborative Role In Upgrading The Textile Machinery Sector

Trade & Policy

Union Textile Ministry Likely To Play A Collaborative Role In Upgrading The Textile Machinery Sector

The Union Textile Ministry is mulling a move wherein it intends to extend its support to the Rs 10,000-crore domestic textile machinery manufacturing sector in upgrading its production base. The ministry which has been carrying out a comprehensive programme under the TUF scheme for the last couple of decades to fund the textile industry upgrade its base, is now also contemplating to strengthen the impact of some of the recent initiatives being carried out by the textile machinery making sector to fortify its weak links in weaving and processing.

The textile ministry may work out on the modalities to earmark a portion of its R&D budget (for the textile industry) for research and innovation projects in the textile machinery sector which despite having its existence for several years now, have struggled to meet the technological needs of the domestic textile industry. Currently, over 70% of the machinery requirement is being met by imports. The imports stood at Rs 10,305 crore in FY2016 up from Rs 8,858 crore in FY 2015. It is imperative to note that textile machinery sector falls not under the textile ministry but the Union ministry for heavy industries and public enterprise, which has not been able to look after the sector effectively due to lack of a focused approach.

"The Union Textile Ministry is all ready to support the R&D efforts being carried out by the machinery sector. We don't mind earmarking some portion of our R&D fund for the projects being undertaken by the sector. We are open to work in collaboration with our counterpart in the heavy industries to augment the whole effort of R&D," says Kavita Gupta, textile commissioner, Government of India on the sidelines of the 56th AGM of Textile Machinery manufacturers' Association (TMMA) held recently in Mumbai.

Gupta has praised some of the recent R&D initiatives being undertaken by TMMA and expressed the ministry's desire to participate in such efforts in collaboration with other ministries and agencies. It may be noted that a high-tech shuttleless loom development project is currently underway (since April 1, 2015). Under this project, a Centre of Excellence has been created at Central Manufacturing Technology Institute (CMTI), Bangalore by a consortium of five member companies of TMMA. In the first phase, a prototype of shuttleless loom to attain a speed of 450 rpm will be developed by March 2017. The final approval of the this project was given by the Apex Committee under the Department of Heavy Industries at its meeting held on December 2014 with funding (20:80) from the industry and DHI.

Currently, there are 25 lakh old looms that require to be replaced with high speed looms. However, due to absence of production of high-speed shuttleless looms in the domestic sector, these could only be substituted by imports. For the last few years, around 11,000 shuttleless looms (valued at around Rs 18000 crore) both new and second hand are annually being imported in India. A big chunk of these imports are coming from China, even as the shuttleless loom technology is traditionally monopolised by Italy, Belgium and Germany. Each loom costs between Rs 20 lakh to Rs 45 lakh depending upon the features.

"Currently, our industry doesn't have the requisite technology for the high-speed shuttleless looms and hence we have to fully depend upon imports. There is need to put in place some R&D efforts that can help us upgrade ourselves to certain extent. Towards this end, we at TMMA along with the DHI are implementing the shuttleless loom project and we are expecting some encouraging results," says R Rajendran, chairman, TMMA and management advisor to Lakshmi Machine Works Ltd.

Besides, TMMA is also in the process of setting up a Common Engineering Facility Centre (CEFC) at Surat under PPP mode. The association has joined hands with Surat Engineering Vikas Association' (SEVA), a premier association of engineering industries in Surat, and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Education Society (SVBPES) an engineering college based at Bardoli near Surat for establishing this facility in Surat under the aegis of DHI. A tripartite MoU has been signed among them in March 2016 this year for this purpose, even as the DHI screening committee has cleared the project.