ITF unveils 'India for SURE' to take TN textile sector far

Coimbatore, June 5 (PTI): 'India for SURE', a project with the concept of India as a Stable, sUstainable, Reliable, Ethical partner for sourcing fashion goods with the Tamil Nadu textile sector as the base, was launched by the Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) on Friday. The project was touted to be one in line with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision 'Made in India.' With June 5 being World Environment Day, ITF has placed sustainability as its core.

In this process of establishing the Tamil Nadu textile sector as the most sustainable in the textile community, which is reinforced with authentic data, it would create a good visibility for the sector among the international community and also create a trust in the SURE model, ITF convenor Prabhu Dhamodharan said. With its members across the entire value chain, ITF has been able to create a collective interest in this brand positioning initiative and create a road-map to facilitate a Sustainability Accord a first of its kind cluster-level commitment for sustainability, he said.

As a first step, ITF is developing a sustainability blueprint with the objective of highlighting priority sustainability target areas and moving with a high-level direction to achieve targets and the blueprint would also showcase the achievements and the strengths of the member- companies in sustainability, Dhamodharan said. ITF also launched a data collection initiative to consolidate the individual excellence of the member-companies into numbers that would help in quantifying the strengths in sustainability, he said.

Coimbatore-based ITF is an association of around 500 textile manufacturing companies covering the entire value chain of Tamil Nadu textile industry, including integrated, standalone spinning, weaving, processing, home textiles and apparel companies. Stating that ITF aligns with the Prime Ministers vision and his recent announcement to focus on 'Made in India' products that are made for the world, he expressed confidence the country would post-COVIDA 19 emerge as the preferred global source of apparel and textile products.

"We need to shift our focus more towards our areas of excellence and attract the attention of our stakeholders towards it. We believe that sustainability will be the key to achieve it," Dhamodharan said..