Thiru Dayanidhi Maran, Textiles Minister, called upon the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to double up their efforts to make available the additional requirement of qualified trained technical personnel to the textile sector, while addressing the 16th Convocation ceremony of the design institute. India has the potential to increase its textile and apparel share in the world trade from the current level of 4.5 per cent to 8 per cent and reach $80 billion by 2020. To achieve the growth of Indian Textile and Apparel Industry, investments to the tune of $68 billion across the textile supply chain will be required. Against this requirement, the investment during the last four years was about $9.5 billion.
Maran said, “If we are to achieve these growth potentials, it has been estimated that for the expected additional investment of $68 billion, the textile sector will generate an additional 10 million direct employment and 20 million indirect employment. A part of this additional requirement of workforce is expected to come from the NIFT.” He further said that relevance of the Institute like NIFT increase with the enhanced growth potential of the nation.
He also said that NIFT has earmarked Rs. 360 crore for the upgradation of physical and academic facilities across all centres and hoped that the students and faculty will have better infrastructure facilities so as to enable them to compete with the best in the world. Considering the popularity for the NIFT courses from across the country, Maran said that NIFT has added three more Centres at Kangra, Bhubaneshwar and Jodhpur during the last one and a half years bringing the total number of NIFT Centres to fifteen. NIFT has already started Ph.D Programmes in the Design, Technology and Management from last year.
National Institute of Fashion Technology was set up by the Government of India in 1986 as an autonomous society in collaboration with the Fashion Technology (FIT), New York, to train professionals to meet the requirements of the textiles industry. The institute has pioneered the evolution of fashion business education across the country through its network of 15 centres at New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Patna, Bhopal, Shillong, Kannur, Jodhpur, Bhubaneshwar, Rae Bareli and Kangra. NIFT, besides conducting regular professional undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Design, Management and Technology, also offers short duration part-time courses under its Continuing Education (CE) Programme.
