Business

Textiles Minister K S Rao Inaugurates AEPC-ATDC Smart Bhawan

The AEPC-ATDC Smart Bhawan and the new concept Knitwear Specialty Centre was launched in Faridabad recently. While inaugurating the Centre, Union Minister of Textiles K S Rao said that the ATDC facilities created here for short and long-term training programs and setting-up of the ATDC Knitwear Specialty Training Centre and the Textile Testing Lab is a very timely and significant step and will go a long way in improving the quality of training programs along with helping this robust cluster in future strategies and growth.

Acknowledging the presence of domestic and export apparel manufacturing clusters in Faridabad, notching up around Rs 30 bln exports, the Minister emphasized the need for product diversification and skill development in the sector which at present lacks supply of skilled hands. The AEPC-ATDC ‘Smart Bhawan’ situated amidst a cluster of Apparel Export Units in Faridabad, which alone boast of Rs 3o bln worth apparel export potential, has over 50 apparel export units and 30 fabric processing units employing over 60,000 people in the cluster.

A. Sakthivel, Chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) said that the Centre will serve the youth by giving them access to newly approved National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) Curricula and state-of-the-art training infrastructure while extending services to the nearby apparel industry cluster. Following the inauguration of the Centre, the introduction of NCVT approved course curricula for knitwear course, trainers’ manual and trainers’ handbook was released by Ms. Zohra Chatterji, Secretary, and Ministry of Textile.

Chatterji observed that India’s knitwear export market is growing rapidly as the knitwear production comprises about 45% of the total exported volume of apparel. With around 5,000 knitwear factories already set up in India and many more foraying into knitwear production, numerous skilled hands will be required. In this regard, ATDC has taken timely steps to launch NCVT approved Knitwear Courses, Trainers’ manual and Trainees’ handbook, which will set a new direction and help apparel exporters with Industry ready workforce.

In a bid to motivate the apparel factories in India for the adoption of training and implementation of AEPC DISHA, minister Rao distributed the DISHA adoption Certificates to the ‘DISHA Champions’. As of now, 320 units have been reached out for the training and implementation under project DISHA. The first phase of training has been completed by 167 companies and is ready for assessment. The six days training program/ workshop aims at capacity building and greater awareness for the effective implementation of the program. ‘DISHA Champions’ are the managers of the companies who are chosen from the employee pool which includes professionals from human resource, administration, sourcing and testing departments.