Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday said that Manipur has significant potential in every sector, especially handloom, textiles, sports and organic products besides being the country’s gateway to South East Asia and invited corporate sectors such as Reliance to come to Manipur and explore the potential of the state.
Biren was addressing the inaugural function of the Technical Textiles Conference at Hotel Classic Grande in Imphal East. It was organised by the National Technical Textiles Mission in association with Indian Chamber of Commerce.
Highlighting that the state has good strength of dedicated and cheap labour, uninterrupted power and water supply besides the improved law-and-order situation, he said that the state is now in the atmosphere to create room for investment opportunities by entrepreneurs, industrialists and the corporate sector.
Without the support of big companies, the state itself has started exporting products like ginger and pineapple to overseas, he said and also cited the bagging of medals by five athletics of the total seven from Manipur who took part in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games.
Manipur with its rich textile tradition, strategic location and vibrant entrepreneurial eco-system has significant potential. Manipur is the land gateway of India to South East Asia, he said.
Further stating that Asian Highway is progressing fast, the Chief Minister further appreciated the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation for the work along Imphal-Moreh highway.
Biren also informed that the state has taken up various pilot projects with the technical textiles in road construction and lining of water reservoirs under some special schemes to promote use of agro textiles and geo-textiles in the region.
Appreciating the use of geo-textiles technology in the construction work taken up by BRO in Arunachal Pradesh as highlighted in a PowerPoint presentation by a chief engineer of BRO, Biren said the state needs such new technologies as the soil of Manipur is soft and witnesses frequent landslides especially during rainy season.
With regards to this, the chief minister appealed to the ministry of Road Transport and Highways to ensure that these technologies are utilised in the constructions of highways in Manipur and further apprised them to appoint dedicated teams for the road constructions works at Imphal-Jiribam and Imphal-Mao highways.
Appreciating the work standard maintained in the ongoing road construction works of Asian Highways (Imphal-Moreh road), he lauded the team of NHIDCL for its tremendous job.
Union Minister of State for Textiles, Darshana Vikram Jardosh lauded chief minister Biren Singh and said that one must learn what a double engine government is from his government. He said after returning for his second term, Biren has worked along with all departments and ministries to take Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision forward.
The MoS also explained the vision of the Textile Ministry under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Cabinet Minister Piyush Goyal.
Our industry is mostly cotton-based industry and globally people prefer man-made fibre, she said, adding that in order to increase India’s stake in man-made fibre, some schemes have been initiated.
Textiles Commerce and Industries Minister Nemcha Kipgen said that the importance of technical textiles have grown leaps and bounds and have become more relevant and important along with time as the varieties and different segments of technical textiles are growing in numbers having different purposes and usefulness, and is one of the sunrise sectors.
The invention of specialty fibres and their incorporation in various areas suggest that the importance of technical textiles is going to increase in future, she said.
The minister also said that today, the usage of the technical textiles ranges from agriculture to forestry, horticulture, animal and poultry rearing including animal clothing besides enhancing crop productions.
Brig AS Kanwar, Chief Engineer (P) Arunank Border Roads Organisation, (BRO) provided an overview of the BRO, challenges and case studies and mitigation of the challenges using new technology.
Joint Secy., Ministry of Textiles, Rajeev Saxena briefed the gathering about National Technical Textiles Mission (NTTM) and explained why India needs technical textiles. He said that with the traditional textile we cannot fulfill our requirements and we need man-made fibres.
