The Union textiles ministry of India is learned to be providing supports to 150 startups which are working in technical textiles sector. The grants to the startups would be up to ₹50 lakh each. The funding will be generated from a ₹375 crore allocation for FY25 under the National Technical Textiles Mission (NTTM). It is notable that the government will not seek profit share from the startups.
Technical textiles have a wide range of applications in various sectors including aerospace, defense, automobiles, healthcare, construction and agriculture. India is the fifth-largest market for technical textiles in the world and it was valued at $21.95 billion in 2021-22. The market has been accelerating a rate of 8-10% per year over the period of past five years. The government seeks to increase the growth rate further to 15-20% over the period of next five years.
The global technical textiles market was estimated at $212 billion in 2022. It may grow to $274 billion by 2027. The growth is basically driven by increased demand across industries and development of new products as well.
Supporting the startups is part of the broader goal of the government to promote innovation as well as entrepreneurship. Moreover, the textiles ministry has relaxed the royalty cap and the startups are not supposed to share profit percentage with the government.
The NTTM was launched in 2020 and it aims to position India as a global leader in the technical textiles sector by promoting research, innovation and use of technical textiles across various sectors. The government has also launched other initiatives such as the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for textiles, the PM MITRA Parks scheme and simultaneously the introduction of quality control regulations to support the sector.
