Government of India, Ministry of textiles on Thursday, January 20th launched its 5 year Technology mission on Technical textiles (TMTT) 2010-11 to 2014-15. Government will invest Rs 200 crore for this mission.

Physical target of this mission is divided into two parts:

Mini Mission-I:
1. Setting up 4 new Centre of Excellence (COE) on
a) Nonwoven
b) Composites
c) Indutech or Industrial textiles
d) Sportech

2. Up gradation of 4 COEs covered in Scheme for growth &development of technical textiles (SGDTT) for development of prototypes, incubation centers & provision for appointment of experts.

Mini Mission- II:

1. Business Start up: 30 Projects
2. Organizing Workshops: 52 Workshops
3. Social Compliance through standardization regulatory Measures: In 5 segments, viz Ministry of health & family welfare, Ministry of home affairs, Ministry of road transport & highways, Ministry of agriculture & Ministry of defence.
4. Market development support: 30 buyer-seller meetings.
5. Market development support for export assistance: 50 units to be supported
6. Fund support for contract research: 20 research projects.

Recently the existing 4 COEs of technical textiles geo-tech, agro-tech, pro-tech and medi-tech would also get aid under this mission.

Currently, the market size of Indian technical textile industry is estimated at $9.4 billion.

The Textiles Ministry expects the sector to grow at over 11 per cent annually and touch $16 billion by 2012-13.