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India: Textiles Committee evolves from a regulatory body to a service provider

As part of its Golden Jubilee celebrations, Textiles Committee is happy to have emerged from a regulatory body to a service organization. P Nayak, Secretary of Textiles Committee while addressing the media thanked all the employees of its committee to have evolved seamlessly from a government set-up to an organization that is more with the times.

“There is a change in the mindset of the employees and 70 percent of the technocrats visit the industry, train them in multi-management systems, and are well attuned to the needs of the industry.” It was the Textiles Committee which initiated the Cluster Development Program (CDP), which has now been taken up by the government and many other ministries are implementing cluster development programs in their respective sectors.

“It is the Textiles Committee that demonstrated the program but at present, we are not aggressively into it. CDP is being implemented in only three handloom clusters namely Shantipur in West Bengal, Trichy in Tamil Nadu and Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh,” added P Nayak.

Textiles Committee is one of the organizations in the country to set up a dedicated department for undertaking consultancy in Total Quality Management in the textile industry. This department now provides hand-holding support for ISO 9000 QMS, ISO 14000 EMS, SA 8000, OHAS 18000 to the industry.

The Secretary termed the Market Research (MR) department as one of the biggest achievements of the Committee. The department has rich expertise in organizing research and studies on textile trade. “Today, Textiles Committee has three important segments namely facilitation of Intellectual Property Rights, Trade Related Capacity Building and Protection through Geographical Indication (GI). GI registry also recognizes the contribution of the Committee. We have created lot of information on traditional knowledge, traditional handlooms and production of unique products.”

The next in MR would be non-tariff barriers and trade facilitation analysis, he said. The Golden Jubilee celebrations of The Textiles Committee will be held on October 11 with dignitaries from the textile ministry including KS Rao, Union Minister of Textiles, Panabaaka Lakshmi, Union Minister of State for Textiles and Zohra Chatterji, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles gracing the event.