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NTC Has No Plans To Manufacture Masks, Techtex

The National Textile Corporation of India, which falls under the Textiles Ministry, has no concrete plans in place to manufacture masks or technical textiles in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic even though they have 23 functional mills. On February 27, the WHO had issued guidelines stating that there was a shortage of personal protective equipment, which includes masks and gowns, following which NTC CMD Nihar Ranjan Dash met the Chief General Manager-Technical A Sukumar on March 12. Dash asked the technical team to come up with a plan to manufacture nonwoven technical textiles. In the follow-up meeting on March 18, a plan to manufacture medical textiles, surgical disposable items and nonwoven fabric was submitted. But the CMD did not take any decision. "CMD said he would pass on the details to the textile secretary and the minister. The CMD enquired if the production of such items could be expedited to 10-15 days. The team mentioned that the formal tendering would take a month & it would take another five months for the machines to arrive," a source said. The government can expedite these matters, said another source in the ministry. Ironically, five years ago, a proposal had been submitted to the Ministry of Textiles to venture into producing sanitary napkins, geo-textiles and bullet-proof jackets. Currently the mills produce only yarn & some fabric. The mills which manufacture sanitary napkins can also manufacture face masks and other surgical disposable items because the same fabric (polyester raw material) is used for these items. But no decision was taken on this. Additionally, at the meeting, Dash stated that he would be speaking to the director of Coimbatore-based South Indian Textile Research Association(SITRA) to check if they would manufacture nonwoven masks. SITRA, which falls under the Ministry of Textiles, has several labs on its 50-acre campus for testing and research of material and fabric. In one of its labs, it has a sanitary pad-making machine, which is mostly used for research purposes, but SITRA takes orders to manufacture sanitary napkins as and when they get orders. According to sources within the textile ministry, this machine can also be used to manufacture nonwoven masks and it can make up to 30,000-40,000 masks a day. In the meeting, CMD Das said that N95 masks could be manufactured and giving grand plans, he added that if they could operationalise at least five technical mills, then they would make profits too. However, neither the textile ministry nor the NTC have spoken to SITRA about this plan despite a shortage of personal protective gear in the country. For several of the suggestions put forth by the team, the CMD stated that there was no approval and that they have to be granted approvals. "The CMD says this at every meeting. No proposal is moved forward at the textile ministry," said a source.