Indian Textiles – 2015
   .... Looking for a Glorious future

Cotton cultivated on 5% cultivable land consumes 54% of total pesticides used in Indian agriculture, and in some pockets, the rates are higher than this, leaving immense ecological and human hazards as reported by World Health Organisation. Use of chemicals at such scale causes a lot of hazards to man, i.e., environmental pollution, soil health, and agro-ecology and poor profitability in cotton farming. This has basically prompted the demand of organically cultivated, eco-friendly or ‘green’ cotton. Therefore, organic farming has been aimed at conservation and optimised utilisation of all natural resources for a reasonable profitability under the guiding factors of sustainability of the farm. Five to seven decades ago, most of the cotton cultivated in the country was ‘eco-friendly’ with little or no use of toxic chemicals in its production. Even today, there are many pockets in India, where it is produced without the use of agrochemicals, e.g., areas growing Wagad cotton in Gujarat, Y-1 desi cotton of Khandesh region of Maharashtra, Maljari in Madhya Pradesh, part of areas growing Jayadhar and Suyodhar in Karnataka, Nandicum in Andhra Pradesh and parts of cotton areas in north eastern hill region. Cultivation of cotton with organic methods has helped farmers to improve sustainable productivity. The message on non-chemical and sustainable agriculture has pervaded to many parts of India and is hopefully making inroads into some of the southern cotton growing Indian states and Gujarat

Manmade Fibre – Need for Innovation

Manmade Textiles today account for more than 60% of the world trade in textiles and has maximum scope for further growth.  India is ranked 4th in the production of manmade fibres in the world and therefore there is a tremendous scope for increasing our share in the World Textile.  Due to some un-holistic situation in the production of manmade fibres and increase of taxes and duties marked this industry yet uncompetitive in the world market.  There is a large demand for synthetic fibre fabrics for production of garments.  In spite of the substantial production capacity for fabrics in the country, the garment producers are importing the fabrics as they more economical or quality of fabric as required.

The focus of Manmade Fibre in India is still largely for domestic and is uncompetitive in the major markets of the world.   During the year 2005-06, export of manmade textile was US$ 2000 million, which is lower by 2.27% than that of previous year. Target for the current year is made to be US$ 2300 million. There is a need to go for R&D and Product Development Work as per the need of World Market. The MMF Industry also needs to look up to developing technical textiles, given the obvious competitive advantage in the world textile market.  Innovation is the hallmark of the manufactured fiber industry..  As per the recent study commissioned by The Synthetic & Rayon Textile Export Promotion Council, even in the export front, India has high potential to reach Rs.28, 000 crore by 2010 from Rs.9,000 crore of now.

Nylon variants, polyester, and olefin are used to produce carpets that easily can be rinsed clean - even 24 hours after they've been stained. Stretchable spandex and machine-washable, silk-like polyesters occupy solid places in the U.S. apparel market. The finest micro-fibre is remaking the world of fashion.  For industrial uses, manufactured fibres relentlessly replace traditional materials in applications from super-absorbent diapers, to artificial organs, to construction materials for moon-based space stations. Engineered non-woven products of manufactured fibers are found in applications from surgical gowns and apparel interfacing to roofing materials, road bed stabilizers, and floppy disk envelopes and liners. Non-woven fabrics, stiff as paper or as soft and comfortable as limp cloth, are made without knitting or weaving.  Technical Textile may be made as the Growth Engine for the development of Indian Manmade Textile abroad.  Approach , therefore, should be towards development of

Growth Potential of Technical Textile –
A need to enter newer areas

Technical Textile relates more for technical performance and functional properties rather than for its aesthetic value.  According to the Expert Committee, domestic market size in 2003-04 was around US$ 4.5 billion, which is expected to grow at 11% per annum over the next five years.  Increasing industrial output, vibrant construction activity, rising disposable incomes and healthcare expenditure will drive demand for geo-textiles, home textiles, medical textiles – diapers and other non-wovens, packaging items, auto textiles, sports shoes, etc.  With net imports and fragmented domestic production base there is a huge latent demand.

All top 10 companies in the textile industry have one common thing in them i.e. they have technical textiles in their production programme. This shows the importance of technical textiles in the product-mix. An outstanding feature of the technical textiles industry is the range and diversity of raw materials, processes, products and applications that it encompasses.

In India, present technical textile market is estimated to be worth Rs. 20,128 crores and the market is expected to reach 42,006 crores of rupees by year 2007-08. Non-woven is an important segment of the technical textiles contributing about 17% of the technical textile industry. Moreover, the growth potential of non-woven technical textiles is more than 11%.

The 12 broad application areas as defined by Messe Frankfurt are:
Agrotech:             agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fishing
Buildtech:             building and construction
Clothtech:            functional components of shoes and clothing
Geotech:              geotextiles and civil engineering
Hometech:            products used in the home; components of furniture and
floorcoverings
Indutech:              filtration and other products used in industry
Medtech:              hygiene and medical
Mobiltech:            transportation construction, equipment and furnishing
Oekotech:            environmental protection
Packtech:             packaging and storage
Protech:                personal and property protection
Sporttech:            sports and leisure technical components.

With the open economy and fast changing world, the importance of technical textiles is improving day by day. We find hygiene products, medical textiles, domestic, wipes, geo textiles, geo-nets, flooring carpets, roofing material, synthetic leather, leather substrates, shoe material, decorative felts etc. adding value to our life style. It is quite evident that now textile entrepreneurs have to think differently from the regular commodity products and come out with novel products with innovative marketing techniques. Statistics show that technical textiles like medical textiles, industrial textiles, building textiles, sport textiles etc have tremendous growth potential as their growth is projected as very good from 2005-2010, as well as, their market share is significant.

The driving force for important fibre developments, especially in past two decades has been the ever increasing applications for fibrous material in non-conventional sectors such as protective clothing, medical devices and health care products, automotive components, building material, geotextiles, agricultural devices, sport and leisurewear, filter media and environmental protection. These and many other applications of textile materials put strong demands on good performance properties such as strength/modulus, durability and dimensional stability and on functions such as flame-retardance, hydrophilicity; hydrophobicity; biocompatibility etc.

Indian presence in technical textile area is relatively small at present but considering the size of the country and a fast growing economy (current estimate is 8% growth rate) coupled with diverse raw material base, a large textile industry and trained man power, it is expected that technical textiles in the country will grow at a significant rate during next 5 years. In fact, there is already a perceptible sign of growth in a few areas like automotive textiles, medical and healthcare textiles, industrial textiles, technical components of home textiles and protective textiles. Both the production and consumption of technical textiles is expected to grow enormously in India in near future. New entrepreneurs from developing countries like India have to focus on technical textiles as their product mix. However they need to carry out thorough marketing study and decide on the products.