Atal Incubation Centre to be set up in Tirupur

CMN Muruganandan, Chairman, NIFT-TEA institution, said 3,800 government and private institutions across the country applied for the project. “Ours is among the 10 institutions identified in the first round,” he said, indicating that it is likely to be inaugurated next month. 

The total eligible project cost is Rs 11.75 crore, of which the total grant-in-aid from NITI Aayog will be Rs 8.90 crore. The rest is to be arranged by the host institution. The grant would cover capital and operational expenditures to set up the AIC that would in turn nurture innovative start-up businesses in their pursuit to become scalable and sustainable enterprises for a period of five years. 

NIFT-TEA has planned a 10,000 sqft building to establish the incubation facilities comprising product development, training and work space where budding entrepreneurs  who want to create to start-ups in the areas of textiles and apparels could be enrolled as incubatee and nurture their innovative ideas. The centre would also try to serve as a catalyst to help entrepreneurs attract angel investors for seed capital funds. 

According to Muruganandan, garment manufacturers in the knitwear hub were struggling to expand their product portfolio beyond the predominant cotton-based summer wear due to lack of high quality research and development. Venturing into the affordably-priced all-season apparels has become the need of the hour for small and medium scale manufacturers in Tirupur to survive in the highly-priced and quality-driven global apparel market, he pointed out. 

Focus of AIC will also be on developing product technologies of functional garments such as moisture management fabrics, bio textiles, seamless apparels and blended apparels. 

The incubation centre will also provide handholding support for concept development, process and product development, field trials, business plan preparation, technical consultancy and in linkages to market.