You are well aware that Textile Industry has held the position of being the second largest industry in the country, as also the second largest employment provider. Being one of the highest Forex earners, the importance of this industry need no further emphasis.

The technology in India has now geared for making state-of-the-art products with the advent and adoption of latest technology. However, the acceptability of these products in the Indian and Oversees market is based on satisfactory test results and performance data. And many technologies being new, the testing equipment are either not available or need to be imported with extra ordinary cost. Further online instrumentation may also enhance the capabilities of the existing technology level.

As testing of textiles is very important factor in the manufacturing and marketing of the product, more emphasis should be given to the development of testing equipments as well as instrumentation. The equipment being manufactured in India for textile testing are mostly electro-mechanical and needs modernizations and sophistication.

Considering this and the growing demand for proven textile products in future, Department of Science and Technology (DST) wants to encourage the Indian Scientist to put efforts in design and development of textile testing equipment under the Instrument Development programme (IDP) of DST. In this regard, a project cluster meet is being organized by DST to be held in September, 2010 at The Synthetic and Art Silk Mills' Research Association (SASMIRA), Mumbai wherein, the ideas of the scientists from different organizations would be discussed before an expert panel of DST's Expert Group on Industrial Instrumentation for consideration of funding in due course.

You are requested to submit a brief write up on the project proposal on instruments that you wish to design in the enclosed prescribed format.

Format for submitting the proposals