With several medium and large scaled industries in Coimbatore looking at technical textiles for diverse applications. Coimbatore, one of Country’s major textile centres and also home to three centres of excellence, set up by the Ministry of Textiles. Innovative applications for textiles, especially using non-woven materials will be promoted by these centres.

The 60,000 sq.ft centre of excellence for industrial textiles was set up at a total cost of nearly Rs. 40 crore. Of this, the land and building was by the PSG Institute and the Ministry had sanctioned Rs. 25 crore.

The CoEs for industrial textiles and home textiles at the PSG Institute of Technology and Applied Research campus and the one for medical textiles at the South India Textile Research Association (SITRA) will soon have incubation facilities (plug-and-play model).

The focused incubation centre will come up at a cost of Rs. 2.85 crore and it will look at filtration products, coir and acoustic materials.

According to G. Thilagavathi, head of the department of Textile Technology at PSG College of Technology, the centre promotes research, encourages industry to use the machinery installed, takes up testing, imparts training, and also manufactures products for commercial use.

Some of the testing equipment are not available elsewhere and the industry can use it. Similarly, industries can join hands with the centre to take up research of products for specific applications.

The centre can be used by any industry. The centre has signed agreements with some industries to take up product-specific research.

With more focus on research and better awareness on the facilities available at the centre, development and manufacture of products for industrial purpose can grow and these will be cost-effective too.

It has set up full production lines to make wet wipes for diverse uses and needle punching coir products and is working on various raw materials to produce non-woven mats that can be used as filter in different industries.

The market size for industrial textiles in the country is Rs. 9,929 crore, for medical textiles it is Rs. 4,282 crore and for home textiles, it is Rs. 9,274 crore. The market is growing at the rate of six percent to 14 percent annually, depending on the product, according to the data available.

In 2012-2013, import of industrial textiles was 22 percent of the total technical textiles imported (Rs. 6,525 crore), medical textiles were 15 percent and home textiles were seven percent. Export of technical textiles was to the tune of Rs. 7,117 crore and of this 15.1 percent was industrial textiles, 9.9 percent was medical textiles, and 10.9 percent was home textiles.