Coimbatore, the leading Indian textile hub, may get a state-of-the-art laboratory to test medical textile products as the South India Textile Research Association (SITRA) has proposed the same.
Prakash Vasudevan, Director, SITRA, has already presented a proposal to Union Minister of Textiles Piyush Goyal.
The proposal, to set up such a testing laboratory at Rs. 25 crore, has been submitted to the Textiles Committee and SITRA is waiting for the response from the Textile Ministry.
The Minister had suggested that it could be a joint project of the BIS and SITRA.
The Centre of Excellence (CoE) for medical textiles at SITRA had developed several products. It had also given quality standards to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for nearly 70 medical textile products.
However, the facilities available with SITRA could only test about 30 of these products. It could not take up anti-viral testing and biodegradability testing at present. There were several such tests that could be done if a state-of-the-art testing facility was established here.
SITRA wants to cover all the 70 products or even more. Notably, this should be established in next two years and some machineries may have to be imported. The laboratory will be a part of the CoE.
If the facility is established, it would be possible for the industry and the healthcare sector to do all the mandatory testings in the country.
