The Indian textile engineering industry, which is more than five decades old, is ranked first among the capital goods sector of the engineering industry. The textile engineering industry has expanded rapidly and its annual installed capacity is Rs.38, 000 million per annum, employing more than 50,000 workers. Though the utilisation of capacity has increased to 72% as compared to 55% in the preceding year, there is ample scope for increasing the capacity utilisation.

The entire range of textile machinery including the latest generation machines are produced by the industry. Many units manufacturing textile machinery are under technical collaborations and some are both under technical and financial collaborations facilitating transfer of updated and new technology to the Indian entrepreneurs. The latest technology thus obtained from abroad and developed indigenously has enabled the industry to compete in the international markets both in quality and prices.

The continuance of the economic reforms and the liberalisation in trade have facilitated a number of foreign entrepreneurs to establish joint ventures in India both for production of textile machinery and equipments and to meet the needs of export markets at competitive prices.

The production of textile machinery and parts & accessories during the last six years is given below:

There are about 600 units in the industry manufacturing textile machinery, components, accessories and attachments and they are situated in important centres of India. The components and accessories sector is catering to the requirements of not only the leading Indian textile machinery manufacturers but also of almost all composite and spinning mills.

This section of the industry consists of units of varying sizes. Spinning machinery components and accessories like, spindles, rings, ring travelers, cots and aprons and weaving accessories like, reeds, healds, etc. are manufactured by and large by small and medium scale units on the basis of technology evolved by themselves though some of the units started production under technical collaboration.

In most of the cases, the quality and standard of components and accessories produced in India has been accepted world wide. The very fact that as much as 45 to 50% of the total exports of the textile engineering industry is contributed by parts and accessories sector is a positive proof of this statement. To substantiate, following is the statement of export of textile machinery, parts and accessories: