With its board zeroing in on two international players for the first phase of its upcoming technical textile plants, National Textile Corporation (NTC) is soon set to kick off work on the project.
The Ministry of Textiles, along with NTC is planning to set up in all 12 technical textiles plants across the country on a public private partnership (PPP) mode. For this, expression of interests (EoIs) were invited resulting in 18 companies from around the world showing interest in the project.
"Of the 18 EoIs received, six EoIs are from India, while rest are from France, UK, US, Japan and Germany. The Board and Ministry of Textiles have zeroed in on two international players who will be soon releasing a detailed project report (DPR) on the first phase of the project. However, the names will only be announced once the minutes of the board meeting are released soon," said a ministry official on condition of anonymity.
The technical textile plants, one of which is likely to come up in Ahmedabad, will develop products in verticals like geo textiles, medical textiles and industrial textiles, among others. "The international firms that have been roped in for the first phase do specialise in several verticals of technical textiles. Each of these players will be working on one plant," the official added.
After several mills having been auctioned, there are still three mills viz. Rajnagar Mills, Viramgam Mills and Petlad Mills yet to be auctioned or modernised, and the new technical textiles project will offer such an opportunity for these mills. According to the ministry official, NTC will also look to set up a plant on a greenfield land. However, according to the official, NTC has over 1,200 acres of land in various cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Indore, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and some other cities in Karnataka.