Status of the Indi
Status of the Indian Textiles
Industry
Indias textile industry is a conventional industry dominated by
cotton. According to a recent report by the Ministry of Textiles, India, there
are 1834 textile mills with an installed capacity of 37 million ring spindles,
489,718 rotors and 56,526 looms. Compared to the capacity of the conventional
textile industry, the nonwoven roll good production is between 80,000 and
100,000 metric tons. Textiles industry, which includes the nascent technical
textiles sector, contributes 4% to the GDP and 14% to the industrial
production. The two main reasons which make the Indian textiles industry strong
are: 1) export earnings and 2) employment opportunities. Indias textiles
industry employs some 35 million people directly and contributes 17% to the
total export earnings of the country.
Need for Technical Textiles Sector in India
The economic strength of the Indian textiles industry comes from its export
earnings. The competitive advantage that India had in terms of its labor cost
has been eroding slowly and smaller nations such as Bangladesh and Vietnam due
to cheaper labor and trade agreements with the US and Europe are gaining
advantageous positions with regard to foreign trade. More recently, the
decrease in the consumer spending and the global economic recession has forced
the Indian textile industry to start thinking seriously about technical
textiles. The government and the industry are looking for diversification
opportunities to enlarge the overall market size of the Indian textiles
industry. India textiles industry wants to reach the size of US $ 115 billion
by 2012. The expectation is that the technical textiles sector will contribute
at least 10% to the overall market size, which will be US $ 11.5 billion. The
current value of the Indian technical textiles sector is around US billion.
This means, Indias technical textiles sector has to nearly double in size in
years ahead. All stake holders, i.e., industry and trade associations,
Government, industry related trade associations and textile academia and working
seriously to build a viable technical textiles sector in India. In this
connection, Government of India is playing a significant role in creating
awareness and developing a knowledge base for the NWTT sector. Since mid 2000s,
the government has supported many technical awareness programs. Both INDA and
EDANA have offered sector wise training programs in major textile hubs such as
Surat, Coimbatore, New Delhi, etc.
