TEXTILES.ORG
The Expenditure Finance Committee of India has just approved the Technology Mission on Technical Textiles (TMTT), which will fund the creation of four new Centers of Excellence (CoE) with an investment of $22.2 million. The news was revealed to Seshadri Ramkumar of Texas Tech University by a senior government official of the Ministry of Textiles on Sept. 27, 2010. The four new facilities will be in addition to the four existing centers that focus on geotextiles, medical textiles, protective textiles and agricultural textiles, which have received $9.8 million to date. Additional investments of $8 million will be disbursed to these four centers to enhance their R & D capabilities, according to Ramkumar. The eight centers will have a total investment of approximately $40 million. One center exclusively for nonwovens and one for composite materials are currently planned.
The major thrust of the TMTT is to boost the growth of the technical textiles industry, which includes industrial fabrics, coating, nonwovens and converting sectors. The TMTT will assist entrepreneurs and researchers to enhance process, product and marketing know-how in technical textiles. India’s technical textiles sector is estimated to grow at an annual rate of 11 percent.