Aiming a growth of 20 per cent in technical textiles exports in the coming years, the government today said it will increase the plan allocation by five times for the sector.
“In the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), we are going to give a push to technical textiles which have a wide industrial usage from hospitality to construction to defence. Therefore, the plan allocation would be increased five times over what was the allocation under the 11th Plan,” Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told reporters here.
He was speaking on the sidelines of FICCI’s Technotex 2013 programme.
Technical textiles are specially engineered products used for various applications including medical, protective clothing, automotive, industrial, fire retardants and in agriculture sector.
“I do hope that the growth in technical textiles sector which is 10 per cent will increase to 20 per cent,” he said.
He also said that five parks related with the sector are coming up in five states — Rajasthan, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
The minister also announced Rs 55-crore scheme to boost the sector in the North Eastern states of the country.
“It will help farmers and horticulturists to meet the challenges of post-harvest losses,” he added.
There is a need to take more steps to boost the overall textiles sector as it is going through difficult time, he said, adding textiles sector contributes 17 per cent in the industrial production and 4 per cent in the country’s GDP.
“But are we satisfied with this? No. We need to do more,” he said.
According to reports, the technical textile industry is expected to touch Rs 1,58,000 crore by 2016-17 from Rs 41,000 crore in 2010-11.