India’s ministry of textiles has cleared 15 R&D projects worth around ₹32.25 crores across key strategic areas such as speciality fibre, protective textiles, high-performance textiles, geotextiles, medical textiles, sustainable textiles, and textiles for building materials during the 5th Mission Steering Group (MSG) meeting held under the chairmanship of Piyush Goyal, minister of textiles, commerce and industry and consumer affairs, food, and public distribution.

Among these 15 R&D projects, 7 projects of speciality fibres, 2 from protective textiles, 2 from high performance textiles, 1 from geotextiles, 1 from medical textiles, 1 from sustainable textile, 1 from textiles for building materials was approved, the ministry of textiles said in a media release.

While addressing the 5th Mission Steering Group meeting, minister Goyal said that leading textile manufacturers and institutes should come together to indigenously develop strategic and high-value technical textile products, with the support of the National Technical Textile Mission (NTTM).

Robust outreach exercise is required to attract R&D proposals in machinery and equipment across major textile machinery manufacturing hubs in India. Inter-ministerial collaboration is required to document and utilise existing and updated technologies for wider usage in the nation building process, especially in the areas of sustainable technical textiles. Existing beneficiaries of NTTM such as premier institutes and research bodies need to connect with other institutes for wider awareness, benefits, and optimal utilisation of NTTM scheme across India, added the minister.

Technical textile machinery and equipment development has been a major challenge which needs collaborative interventions from government, industry, and academia, including commercialisation of the developed machines. The general guidelines for indigenous development of machines and equipment in the application areas of technical textiles under NTTM is a strong-foot forward and needs to be utilised the industry at its fullest, he further emphasised.

The meeting comprised of senior officials from the government including NITI Aayog, office of principal scientific advisor, ministry of road transport and highways, department of expenditure, department of defence, ministry of MSME, ministry of agriculture & farmers’ welfare, DPIIT, and members from other ministries, and eminent members from the industry.