The Ministry of Textiles has released guidelines to enable academic institutions to offer technical textiles training, including assistance for course initiation and equipment and skill upgrades. Additionally, guidelines for providing funds for internship support in technical textiles have been adopted.
Both sets of rules were approved at a meeting of the Empowered Programme Committee (EPC) and are a part of the government’s flagship National Technical Textiles Mission, according to Rachna Shah, Secretary of the Textiles Ministry.
According to Shah, 107 technological textile goods are being considered for Quality Control Orders (QCOs) to guarantee the excellent quality of technical textiles. She noted that QCOs for up to 19 geotech, 12 pro-tech, 22 aggrotech, and 6 meditech kinds of technical textiles are being considered. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization rule already covers 48 of the things that fall under the category of meditech.
More than 500 BIS standards have been created for technical textiles, and 40 more are being created in response to industry demands.
The Secretary elaborated on the two sets of guidelines for technical textiles, stating that they will focus on developing an efficient and top-notch knowledge ecosystem in order to make India a global leader in technical textiles within the next ten years.
The funding of laboratory equipment upgrades and improvements, training for lab staff, and specialised training for faculty members of the relevant department or specialisation in the university or institute are all covered by the guidelines for enabling academic institutes with regard to undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) degree programmes.
Grant
The standards apply to both privately funded institutions with NIRF rankings as well as state institutions. Support for the introduction of a full technical textiles programme may total up to 20 crores for PG programmes and up to 10 crores for UG programmes. Grants of up to 7.5 crore rupees may be awarded at the UG level for the introduction of one required course and a few electives.
There will be two phases to the introduction of the general guidelines for grant for internship assistance in technical textiles (GIST). The first stage of the internship programmes entails the appointment of qualified businesses, while the second stage involves monthly grants to the appointed businesses of up to 20,000 per student. This is subject to a maximum financing assistance length for the internship of two months.
