GREAT scheme

• The Startup Guidelines for Technical Textiles – Grant for Research and Entrepreneurship across Aspiring Innovators in Technical Textiles (GREAT) has been approved.
• The guidelines focus on supporting individuals and companies to translate prototypes to technologies & products, including commercialization.
• It will be providing grant-in-aid of up to Rs 50 lakh for up to a period of 18 months.
• The textile ministry will additionally provide 10 per cent of total grant-in-aid to incubators.
• A minimum investment of 10 per cent of the funding from the incubatee in two equal instalments is mandated.
• Moreover, the textiles ministry has also given a nod to 26 institutes for upgrading their laboratory infrastructure and training of trainers in the application areas of technical textiles.

ABOUT TECHNICAL TEXTILES

• Technical textiles are defined as textile materials and products used primarily for their technical performance and functional properties rather than their aesthetic or decorative characteristics.
• Depending on the product characteristics, functional requirements and end-use applications the highly diversified range of technical textile are grouped into 12 segments. These are-
  • Agrotech (agro textiles)
  • Buildtech (construction textiles)
  • Clothtech (clothing textiles)
  • Geotech (geo textiles)
  • Hometech (home textiles)
  • Indutech (industrial textiles)
  • Meditech (medical textiles)
  • Mobiltech (automotive textiles)
  • Oekotech (Ecological protection textiles)
  • Packtech (packaging textiles)
  • Protech (protective textiles)
  • Sportech (sports textiles)