New Government looking for fresh ideas in Textile & Apparel Sector: GOI Textile Committee Secretary

6 June 2019 :
CII Report on Textile 4.0” Released at CII Texexcel 2019

In keeping the view of Hon’ble Prime Minister’s dream of Make in India, the textile industry is taking a paradigm shift towards automation referred to as Textile 4.0. Globally too the textile industry is shifting towards technological innovations, which is an irresistible trend towards higher levels of automation and data exchange in manufacturing. The Industry foresees the age of smart factory, with global players already venturing into the area of textile research using technological innovations.

It is high time that the industry changes its approach and mindset if it wants to wants to move into the second growth phase and aim for exports of around US$100 billion from the current US$40 billion. We need to come up with detailed plans that can take the industry to its next level. All these years we have focused on more production scale, but now the focus has to be on quality and other aspects to improve our competiveness. The new government is hungry for ideas and requests the industry to come forward with new innovative ideas, said Mr. Ajit B Chavan, Secretary, Textile Committee, Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India at CII Texexcel 2019, the National Textiles 4.0 Summit,organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) with the theme, Competitiveness of Indian Textile & Apparel Industry – Forging Ahead held in Mumbai.

India is one of the few countries in the world which has production capacities across the textile value chain. The country’s key strength lie in the availability of large pool of labour, a growing domestic market, competitive cost factor and government support.

The textile industry needs to change itself and get out of the Chinese mindset. The industry needs to talk to the government on power, tariff barriers, price etc. The industry should look into branding India in the international market. There should be confidence in the mind of the consumer that India can deliver on time and quality, said Mr R D Udeshi, Conference Chairman and President – Polyester Chain, Reliance Industries Ltd.

The world is looking at sustainability in a big way. Consumers want to know what will happen to the garments after its use, Will it be dumped into the sea or burnt down to ashes. So the industry needs to focus on sustainability, Udeshi added.

The textile sector holds immense potential. India is emerging as a global textile hub. We immediately need to address the issue of being cost driven rather than innovation driven. India needs to develop and grow man-made fibre to remain competitive in the global market, said Dilip Gaur, Chairman, CII National Committee on Textile & Apparel & Managing Director, Grasim Industries Ltd.

In view of the US China trade war, India needs to create a level playing field for local players and protect the domestic industry. India needs to create trade barriers for China to prevent it from dumping cheap textile products into India. The textile industry aims to be a US$350 billion industry by 2025 from the current US $137 billion, Gaur added.

CII-Wazir Exclusive Report on Textiles sector Report – Textile 4.0” and APQI – CII Application note on Power Quality for Textile Industries reports were released on the occasion.

In order for manufacturers to attain competiveness, it will be a boon to integrate the concepts of Textile 4.0 with manufacturing excellence.

India needs to make itself competitive in the global market and that is the only way, all other means are temporary. The US China trade war holds a lot of opportunities for India, but we need to be competitive. We need to have smart factories, said Prashant Agarwal, Joint Managing Director, Wazir Advisors.

Now there is a lot of emphasis on sustainability. The world is looking at factories to reduce the use of resources and water. Companies should also look at reducing carbon footprints. India should look at presenting itself as a competitive manufacturing nation, Agarwal said.

The Indian textile and apparel industry is one of the oldest industries in the country having evolved impressively from a domestic small scale industry to one of the largest exporting industry for the country. Today the combined market size of exports and domestic constitutes approximately 72 per cent of the total market size while exports constitute the remaining 28 per cent. In terms of global ranking, India is the second largest exporter of textile and apparel products with 5 per cent share.

With the increased usage of modernized machinery there is a high consumption of electrical power in the textile sector. There is limited consideration of around the availability if quality power. Poor quality of power results in higher energy usage and costs and increase in maintenance costs. It also leads to premature failure or degraded performance of industrial equipments, resulting in increased system losses.

Commenting on the subject, Mr. Sanjeev Ranjan, Managing Director, International Copper Association India said, “There is a growing need for investing in quality power infrastructure in the textile sector to improve overall efficiency and minimizing economic losses. We at APQI are proud to partner with. CII and launch our application note which focuses on best practices and standards. We believe that the adoption of these standards would contribute significantly towards the overall growth of the textile sector.”