Tirupur (India) enjoys an enviable reputation of being the country’s major textile and knitwear hub accounting for 90 per cent of the entire cotton knitwear exports from the country.
However, according to Tirupur-based AIC-NIFT TEA Incubation Centre for Textiles and Apparel’s CEO R. Periyasamy, regardless of the progress made till date in the famed knitwear cluster, the idea of product development is yet to gain solid footing and is not at par with global scientific standards.
For the uninitiated, AIC-NIFT TEA – a non-profit organisation – is a collaboration among Central Government organisation NITI Aayog’s ‘Atal Innovation Mission’ (AIM), India’s premier fashion education institute ‘National Institute of Fashion Technology’ and Tamil Nadu-based ‘Tirupur Exporters Association’.
The organisation, markedly, provides pre-incubation facilities along with a range of common infrastructure and services to innovators and startup entrepreneurs for developing solutions in the textiles and apparel sector.
Going forward with its mission, AIC-NIFT TEA is now calling applications from textile and apparel institutes to tender ideas and concepts that suit any of the 17 areas, including waste management, recycling and reuse, covered in AIM’s recently announced ‘Atal New India Challenge’.
Importantly, the contest is open to people from MSMEs, startups, research and development space and academia. What’s more, even five Union ministries including agriculture, railways, road transport, drinking water and sanitation, and housing and urban affairs are reportedly participating.
“Anyone, who has market-ready products, which could have a positive influence on environment, economy and society, can submit their concepts. The aim of the contest is to foster employment and contribute to economic development,” Periyasamy explicates.
Since we are the incubation centre for textiles and apparels, we are inviting budding incubatees from the textile and fashion institutions to tender their novel concepts for the contest, the AIC-NIFT TEA Centre Chief further elucidated.
Especially, the ground-breaking concepts in production management, smart factory, waste management and packaging management could be quite valuable for the textile and apparel industry, he underlined.
The contests such as Atal New India Challenge, Periyasamy feels, could help bring about the much-needed improvement in the textile and apparel sector via ideas conceived within and even outside of the industry.
Significantly, the chosen incubatees will be provided with requisite infrastructure and technical support from experts besides grant to develop their products and will be sent to respective incubation centres.
As far as AIC-NIFT TEA is concerned, Periyasamy clarifies that the centre will impart training to the incubatees, who have shown their mettle, in the apparel sector.
Markedly, the winners of the contest could obtain an incubation grant up to Rs. 1 crore to develop their products and commercialise them. And the last date to furnish applications before Atal Innovation Mission is June 10, 2018.
