The Department of Textile Technology has had a rather interesting history as compared to other Departments of IIT Delhi. It has its roots in the pre-independence days, going back to the year 1942 when the Delhi Polytechnic (now the Delhi College of Engineering) was founded to provide diploma level education. The degree courses were instituted in 1952 by affiliation with the Delhi University. The fortunes of the Textile Department took a sudden turn in 1958 when a high power committee, appointed by the Central Government, decided to establish a new College of Engineering and Technology in Delhi, with British collaboration. This was later to become the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD). It was decided to transfer Textile Technology Department lock, stock, and barrel to the new college which started functioning in 1961. The first M.Tech course started in 1967 and the first Ph.D. degree was awarded in 1969, among the earliest at IIT Delhi.
The Department offers one UG program in Textile Technology and three PG programs in Textile Chemical Processing, Textile Engineering, and Fiber Science & Technology, besides offering the Doctoral program. This department, being the only one of its kind in the IIT system, bears the additional responsibility of providing the road map for the growth of other Textile Institutes in India.
The activities are focused on niche and futuristic areas, such as Smart textiles, Nanotechnology applications, Biotextiles, Engineering of functional apparel, etc. The Global interaction of the department has been improving during the past few years. Close interaction also exists between this department and the University of Bolton, UK, and the University of Liberec of the Czech Republic, which benefits our students in terms of fellowships and internships as well as faculty members in their research through short term visits. The EU project involves interaction between our students & faculty members and those from EPFL of Switzerland, Uppsala of Sweden, RWTH of Aachen, and UC of London in Tissue Engineering. The department also has strong interactions with a Polish Institute (Institute of Natural Fibers, Poznan), an Australian Institute (CSIRO Fibres and Textiles Technology, Melbourne), Italian Institutes (CNR-ISMAC, Biela and POLITECNICO DI MILANO) a Japanese University (Shinshu University, Japan), a Vietnamese Institute (Hanoi University of Technology) and NCSU of the USA with whom we expect to develop mutually rewarding activities in the coming years.