'Be prepared for an upturn not before 2010'- Mr Chakrabarty, TMMA

04 Nov '08

6 min read

We probed him further and asked him as to what steps were being taken by machinery manufacturers to reduce the impact, to which he replied by saying that “Under such challenging circumstances, the textile engineering industry has to take every step possible to make it lean and hardy to survive through this tough period. It is in this scenario that we find ourselves approaching the 8th India-International Textile Machinery Exhibition to be held in November 2008 in Bangalore.

The event will provide us, the Indian textile engineering industry an opportunity to showcase our technology and products. The state of the art exhibition infrastructure at Bangalore for this ITME, will also provide a more appropriate and complementary backdrop. In this time of falling rupee and tighter liquidity for our customers, we should use this opportunity at ITME to convince our customers about the superior value for money that our domestic technology and products offer.”

Fibre2fashion took this opportunity to ask him a key question on the minds of each and every textile mill investor as to why we are not able to manufacture state of art textile machineries in India in spite of such good demand. Mr Chakrabarty was at his diplomatic best when he replied by saying “Most of the textile machinery manufactured in India was manufactured under foreign collaboration, imported drawings and designs, etc. After the collaborations ended, the domestic manufacturers by way of their own research & development improved the technology which is at par with the international standards.

Domestic manufacturers did not opt for large scale labour saving devices as in the case of foreign manufacturers. However, our machines are highly cost competitive with excellent technology. The only problem being faced by this industry is from the import of second hand machinery that too under concessional duty and subsidy schemes. Except in weaving machinery which includes latest generation shuttle-less looms and special purpose processing & finishing machinery, most of our machinery is state of the art.

There is very limited demand for high tech machinery in weaving in particular as well as processing & finishing machinery. Further, the disparate competition from the import of second hand machinery does not give a conducive atmosphere for development of such machinery.”

The technical textiles industry is expected to grow phenomenally in India in the next few years and to give a insight to our readers we asked whether the industry was focusing on this category and as to what were the recent developments to which Mr Chakrabarty said “The machinery being manufactured at present can manufacture many types of technical textiles such as canvas fabric, filter fabrics, jute fabrics, polypropylene fabrics, fish nets, mosquito nets, some of the agro tech items, fabrics for making soft luggage, glass fibres fabrics, etc. etc.

However, machinery for the manufacture of special purpose technical textiles used on roads, river banks as well as non-woven machinery is not manufactured in India neither there is a plan to manufacture the same in the near future because the demand for such machinery is very limited. Our country is yet to take up large scale manufacture of technical textiles and non-wovens.”

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