The ministry of textiles, ministry of micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME) and National Textile Corporation (NTC) have signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) to set up a Tech Centre (Tool Room) at Kanpur, an official release said.

Under the MoU, MSME ministry will fund the project, while NTC would provide the land in a closed, unviable mill.

MSME minister, Kalraj Mishra, textiles minister, Santosh Kumar Gangwar and Murli Manohar Joshi, MP from Kanpur were present on the occasion.

The centre will be managed by a governing council where development commissioner, MSME will be chairperson and textiles ministry representative, co-chairperson.

The textiles ministry will be benefited by the skilling of youth in textile sector, thus, providing requisite skilled manpower to the textile industry. The technology centre would provide support in manufacturing of quality tools that would improve productivity of MSMEs and enable them to become competitive in national and international markets; it would also provide trained manpower and consultancy in related areas.

Since NTC is moving forward towards modernization, expansion and integration, the setting up of the technology centres would be immensely beneficial to NTC as well.

Drawing inspiration from the vision of the Prime Minister for ‘Skill India’, the textiles ministry, through Integrated Skill Development Scheme (ISDS) targets to train 15 lakh youth in the textile sector by 2017.