Carbon Fibre Precursor Line Inaugurated At BTRA Complex

Bombay Textile Research Association (BTRA) hosted and organised the 61st Joint Textile Conference (JTC) on December 14 and 15 at BTRA Complex, which was attended by around 350 delegates.

The JTC was jointly organised by Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association (ATIRA), Northern India Textile Research Association (NITRA) and South India Textile Research Association (SITRA).

At the conference, the Chief Guest, Manoj Singh Gaur, Director, IIT-Jammu inaugurated a Carbon Fibre Precursor Wet Spinning line, which has a 4,000 filament capacity.

This line is the first of its kind in India, which has been installed in BTRA’s High Performance Fibre Lab.

Dr Sharad Saraf, Chairman, Governing Council, BTRA in his Presidential address informed the gathering about the R&D efforts made by all the four TRA’s.

Narendra Dalmia, Deputy Chairman, Governing Council, BTRA highlighted the transformation of the TRA’s into world-class institutes particularly in the niche area of the technical textiles.

Dalmia urged the industry to handhold the TRA’s in order to participate in the growth of technical textiles.

During the address, Rajeev Saxena, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Textiles highlighted the collaborative role of TRA’s and industry for carrying out R&D in new technological projects.

Saxena urged the TRA’s to carry out more industry-oriented R&D work in the design and development of machines and as well as development of feasible technical textile products.

Roop Rashi, Textile Commissioner during her address shared the role being played by the Govt. of India for supporting industry and TRA’s in view of market challenges, supply chain and ecosystem.

She urged the industry to come forward with suggestions during such conferences to overcome obstructions or challenges faced by them in the textile value chain.

She also briefed on the policy initiatives and developmental projects taken by the Government of India to augment the growth of the textile trade and industry with special reference to technical textiles.

RD Udeshi, President, Polyester Chain, Reliance Industries in his keynote address highlighted the role played by the Govt. of India, industry and TRA’s during the Corona pandemic,

He spoke about the fruitful outcome achieved by India thereafter to become a prominent force in the technical textiles field.

He stressed that the role can be played by the industry with the help of TRA’s to become self-sufficient in each segment of textiles with special mention of textiles used in defense applications.

He further mentioned the need of the full-fledged updated testing facilities at all TRA’s in view of ever-changing technological aspects and supportive role can be played by industry.

Manoj Singh Gaur, Director, IIT-Jammu in his inaugural address, spoke about the MoU signed between IIT-Jammu and BTRA and he too emphasised the need of the collaborative works between IITs and TRAs.

Over the two days of the conference sessions and panel discussions were held first on Geosynthetics and the second on Challenges to Implement QCO and regulatory requirements for geosynthetics.

The third session was on Technical Textiles followed by a session on Chemical Processing, Spinning, Emerging Areas, Product Development and finally a session on Nano Fibres & Nano Materials.