NIFT speciality centre in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: The Union Government will establish a National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) speciality centre in Coimbatore, Union Minister for Textiles Dayanidhi Maran said here on Saturday.

Inaugurating the modernised facilities of four mills of National Textile Corporation (NTC) he said the speciality centre would be established in association with the State Government. The resources of NTC and NIFT would be pooled for the benefit of the textile units in this region. NTC would give seven acres of its surplus land to set up the centre and would host the Centre for Apparel and Textiles Studies. The speciality centre would cater to the needs of the local textile industry by providing design, technology and management inputs.

The NTC had modernised the four mills at a cost of Rs. 76.50 crore. Already two NTC mills here were modernised. He urged the NTC to modernise its retail outlets too to revive sales. A technical textiles manufacturing facility would be established in one of the NTC units here. The NTC would make a study on the potential of various technical textile products and soon prepare a project report, he said.

Union Minister of State for Textiles Panabaaka Lakshmi said the Ministry was organising seminars to create awareness on technical textiles. The modernised NTC mills would produce value-added products for domestic and export markets.

Secretary, Union Ministry of Textiles, Rita Menon, said that in an effort to help the NTC market its products, the Textile Ministry was trying to see if the corporation could supply to the Railways and for the commonwealth games.

Earlier, speaking at the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Southern India Mills’ Association here, the Minister said a solution would be found soon to the pollution problem of the textile units in Tirupur.

The Ministry had received representations from the stakeholders about the duty drawback rates and the need for measures to improve the export competitiveness of the Indian textile units. The Textile Ministry had discussed these with the Department of Commerce. “I hope these issues will be addressed in the Foreign Trade Policy to be announced next week,” he said.