The textile industry needs to focus on training its young managers and technicians, T. Kannan, Managing Director of Thiagarajar Mills, said here on Saturday.
Mr. Kannan was speaking at the inaugural of the 74th All India Textile Conference of The Textile Association (India), organised by its South India Unit. The theme for the two-day conference is “Global Textiles - The Way Forward”.
“We need to do much more to train the managers and young technicians,” he said. There are many ingredients for the success of a textile unit. The most important is the manager or the chief executive officer. The industry faces challenges in this area as most of the textile units are small and medium-scale enterprises that are family-owned and family-run. Explaining the requirements of the an efficient manager, he said the candidate should have the right information about developments in the industry. In the changing market, most of the companies go through the cycle of ups and downs. Managers should understand the risks and manage these, he said.
T. Rajkumar, deputy chairman of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, said the industry was giving thrust to innovation. It was going through changes in all its segments. The stakeholders should work towards sustaining export and domestic growth of textiles and clothing.
Raja M. Shanmugam, president of Tirupur Exporters’ Association, said the total annual turnover of the knitwear units in Tirupur is about ₹45,000 crore. The aim was to achieve ₹1 lakh crore by 2020. However, macro economic changes slowed down growth for the last two years. The knitwear town is hopeful of achieving the target by 2022.
T.K. Sengupta, president of The Textile Association (India), said the vision of the Association is to promote technological knowledge. The next world textile conference would be held in Dhaka next year.
T.R. Dinakaran, Chairman of Shri Ramalinga Group of Mills, presented “Life Time Achievement Award” to R. Jagadish Chandran, Chairman of Premier Mills, and Mr. Kannan presented “Industrial Excellence Award” to Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu, Chairman and Managing Director of Lakshmi Machine Works.
