At the 56th Joint Technological Conference, Kavita Gupta, Textile Commissioner, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, informed that textile research associations across the country have not been utilizing the allocated funds properly.
The Textile Commissioner mentioned that there is no constraint for funds allocated under the Technology Mission for Technical Textiles (TMTT) to support the sector, and informed that the average utilization of funds by the four major textile research associations – Bombay Textile Research Association (BTRA), South India Textile Research Association (SITRA), Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association (ATIRA), and Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA), was found out to be 76.51 per cent.
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BTRA’s Centre of Excellence for Geotech only utilized Rs. 3.01 crore of the Rs. 9 crore released out of the allocated Rs. 13.5 crore, while SITRA utilized Rs. 9.72 crore of Rs. 11.43 crore released. ATIRA too has kept a pending amount of Rs. 2.46 crore of the released amount Rs. 22.99 crore, informed Gupta.
Gupta’s insistence for proper utilization of funds was backed by her underlining the importance of Technical textiles, as she said it is the future of the industry. Technical textiles had a market of Rs. 75,925 crore in 2012-13 and is said to grow to Rs. 158,540 crore by 2016-17 with a growth rate of 20 per cent Year-on-Year.
While on the other hand, South India Mills’ Association (SIMA) Chairman M. Senthilkumar informed that Government has cut fund allocation to these associations drastically since 2003. According to him, most of the old textile mills that used to support SITRA closed down and the new ones that opened up post-liberalized era hardly extended any support to the association.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
