The in-principle nod by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) to the proposal for setting up a textile testing laboratory in Ludhiana has pleased the members of the Textile Professional's Association (TPA).
The opening of laboratory will benefit more than 1,000 textile units.
Sukhdarshan Singh, secretary, the TPA said when the association was formed two years ago, members had thought of providing dyeing solutions to small and medium scale industries (SMEs) in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
To strengthen the textile industries in these states, the TPA had envisaged plans that included setting up of fully equipped Textile Testing Laboratory in Ludhiana for unorganised small scale processing houses and garment manufacturers. Most of these units are are unable to meet the dyeing-related demands from European countries as well as the domestic market.
Sukhdarshan added that currently, only the bigger textile units had in-house facilities for conducting dyeing tests and the SME sector was not in the position to procure the dyeing equipment. Therefore, the required tests could only be carried out in labs located in Delhi and other places.
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Apart from high testing charges, the labs located in Delhi and other places took longer to send back the reports. This resulted in delays in delivery of goods by SMEs.
Sukhdarshan added that after the setting up the lab, facilities could be provided at nominal rates to to the dye houses and garment manufacturers. Reports would also be delivered quickly.
The secretary said that most of the textile industry in North India was also facing other problems like poor human resource base, weak international market intelligence, weak institutional linkages, strengthening growth in domestic market, infrastructural constraints and bottlenecks, higher capital cost, higher delivery lead times against international lead delivery times and lack of knowledge of latest textile tests requirement of different international buyers.
Apart from providing dyeing solution to SME sector, the lab would also have a training centre for sensitisation of workers in the textile units.
Sukhdarshan said MSME had asked them to set up a lab that would incorporate Research and Development (R&D) Wing in addition to opening a training centre. Also the MSME department has provided land for the TPA members to open the lab near Ludhiana.
The secretary lamented that with trends in textile industry changing rapidly, the absence of R&D facilities hurt the textile units. He added the opening of the lab could lead to significant improvement in the working of these units.
The secretary said the MSME officials have told the TPA members to submit a final project report giving details about the laboratory and the project was likely to be submitted to MSME department by mid-August.
"Initially we would require around Rs 1 crore to make the lab operational and since we are a non commercial organisation, the MSME department would bear 90 per cent of the expenditure for opening the laboratory while only 10 per cent would be contributed by the Association," Sukhdarshan concluded.