National Conference on Geo-Textiles

24 March 2023, Mumbai 

National Conference on Geo-Textiles

PM GATI SHAKTI Scheme: Leveraging growth opportunity for Geo-Textiles

Held on Friday, 24 March 2023: Shangri-La Eros Hotel, New Delhi.

The National Conference on Geo-Textiles, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with the Ministry of Textiles, is a significant event that aims to leverage the growth opportunity for Geo-Textiles in the PM GATI SHAKTI scheme.
Punit Lalbhai while addressing in one of the sessions I'd like to just share a conversation that some of us are having over lunch, that it has been clearly visible in the last four or five years that the Ministry has spared no effort in trying to listen to the voice of the industry, to come up with policies that are creating enabling business environment kicking in accelerated growth that can only happen if there is a very, very supportive approach to the solution.
We have seen the PLI schemes countrywide first, and then there are many other supportive policies that government keeps delivering to our industry. Not only that act.

I think the Textile Ministry has also made a lot of efforts to ensure that the prevailing pain points in the technical textile industry get addressed and alleviated and want to place it on record here thanking the ministry for enabling such interactions.
And it gives me absolute confidence that the growth that we are talking about putting India, the textile, and geosynthetics is going to happen. 
Ms. Rachna Shah, Textile Secretary l Govt of India started with the note," At the outset, let me compliment the organizers, let me compliment all stakeholders related to technical textiles and geotechnics together under one rule to deliberate on various important aspects and issues related to where we are today in this sector and kind of roadmap for ourselves.
I think it's a very focused kind of agenda that has some very relevant issues being delivered again for growth. When we talk of the textile sector as a whole in India, it's really in the technical textile and the man-made fiber sector that we see tremendous potential for a very accelerated rate of growth.
And the government is committed to acting as an enabler, as a facilitator, to see that progress is made in this segment in this sector. And to that effect, the government is also, through its intervention, trying to create an ecosystem that will enable this kind of growth. 
So the government has come out with a PNI scheme for technical textiles and for mandate fiber, accurate and hybrid. And we are seeing some interesting segments coming up under that scheme. And I think almost 17 to 18 participants under that scheme are developing or are setting up manufacturing capable of capacity.
Related to technical textiles or composite units under the PM Mitra park, which recently announced the seven Mitra parks, a huge mega kind of investment is expected.

And there too, I would expect that in technical textiles the entire integrated value chain for technical textiles would be able to locate in these metropolitan under the National Technical Textile Mission the government is focusing on Rnd, basic fundamental research, and also research applications on developing ecosystems where the technical tech science technical flourish on skilled human resource and all the related aspects.
I think the use of technical textiles is increasing both domestically and in the global market almost exponentially, kind of the rate of growth. While today our export in technical textiles is about $2.2 billion, we do anticipate that there will be a surge in growth and it is our vision or our target to reach 10 billion worth of exports over the next few years.
I'm glad that in this conference and in the earlier session a lot of deliberations have taken place on increasing the use of geotechnics.

And I think the experts have already spoken before me in terms of the kind of performance parameters that geotechnical is able to bring into the building of infrastructure such as roads, natural highways, waterways, railways, and in terms of postal protection structures, I don't think I need to mention that except that these are also easy to use, easy to install. I think they have properties of require a kind of penetration, erosion control civilizations.
They are easily capable and flexible and perhaps lightweight as well. So it would be really important for geometry to be also competitive in terms of costing is a critical element.

So I feel that the applicability of these metrics as well as capability also the fact that they lead to a reduction in designated would probably also contribute and also the fact that they would lend to making the infrastructure assets more durable and easy to maintain would also perhaps lead to there being more and more cost-effective as well".
The virtual address of H'ble Minister of Textiles l Govt of India, Piyush Goyal alludes," Happy to share with you that in line with the Honorable Prime Minister's vision of five S farm fiber, fiber to a factory, factory to fashion, fashion to foreign. Seven mega textile parks under the PM midfield scheme have been announced to be set up in Tamil Nadu, Karangara, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bishop, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.
I would like to congratulate all the winning states. It is important to note that the PM Patrick was used extensively while evaluating the various proposals we received under the PM vector program and it helped us validate the selected and winning location. 
The growth of the global market for formal wear is also anticipated to be aided by a rise in the number of women that work in it. Growth in the number of working women is one of the critical elements driving up demand for women's formal dresses or gowns worldwide.

Also, the expanding fashion sector will greatly contribute to the expansion of this market. This is a testament to India's technology-driven, transparent governance. Friends, today, Asia is the fifth largest producer of technical textiles in the whole world with a market size of nearly $22 billion, which is hoped to build up to $300 billion when we turn a hundred by 2047. 
The global demand for geotechnical is also strong and on the back of this robust growth in infrastructure that we are creating in India, I believe we will be able to contribute significantly to increased market potential in the geotechnical. 
And technical expansive sector. Thus, considering the growth of the sector, we have made substantial efforts to proactively address the challenges of this industry and facilitate the creation of an enabling environment.

We have come up with reforms in other schemes such as the production incentive scheme. The same past has spoken about the national technical and business ease of doing business initiatives. Business initiatives to make it easier for businesses to work and operate in India, and make land available throughout the industrial parts.
All of this will help transform India from only a traditional textile industry to a technical textile and have an MMF hub in the world. We have during COVID been able to demonstrate to the world our resilience through Adversity.
Textiles are one crucial sector that supported us during COVID where we could indigenously develop PPE mars several rapid testing states so that our net importer of several of these products will dramatically expand our capabilities to become an exporter of medical textiles.
Gati Shakti is aimed at providing multimodal connectivity and last-mile infrastructure to various industrial and economic zones and is now also being extensively used in our effort to expand social infrastructure to the remote owners of India.

Thanks to PM Gati Shakti, our infrastructure projects are being fast-tracked with faster approvals, with more holistic planning, and the implementation will become far more judicious and scientific so that we do not have this problem of cost and time over us when we are implementing infrastructure projects. 
This will also expand our own investments in infrastructure and create a bigger market for use of geotechnical in the years to come.

This geotechnics will be used in roads, bridges, highways, railways, airports, and ports and help us in improving the quality and increasing the lifespan of such infrastructure significantly".

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