New Delhi: The Government said that India has become the world’s largest second manufacturer of personal protective equipment (PPE) body coveralls after China, that too in just two months.
In a statement, the Ministry of Textiles said it has been taking several steps to ensure that both quality and quantity of PPE coveralls going up to the desired levels within a very short span of time of two months, “thereby catapulting India into the world’s second largest manufacturer of body coveralls, next only to China”.
The Ministry has taken steps to ensure that only certified players across the entire supply chain are allowed to supply body coveralls to governments. Several officials have been posted in the field for onsite facilitation and oversight of quality of material meant for government supplies and for ensuring traceability and ownership of quality by these manufacturers.
Textiles Committee, Mumbai too will now test and certify PPE body coveralls required for healthcare workers and other COVID-19 warriors. The inclusion of Textiles Committee as the ninth approved laboratory to test and certify body coveralls has been announced by the Ministry of Textiles yesterday evening.
Speaking on the development, Secretary, Textiles Committee and Additional Textile Commissioner, Ministry of Textiles, Ajit Chavan explained how the Committee rose up to the occasion to surmount the challenge of non-availability of reputed domestic manufacturers of PPE testing equipment.
“Transparency, objectivity and professional service is not new to The Textiles Committee. This is just one more initiative by the Committees’ dedicated workforce to rise up to the occasion and do our bit in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic. We faced the humungous challenges of non-availability of domestic manufacturers of repute and incessant delay/long gestation period to import machine from China as also challenges of ever-increasing prices by the opportunist companies in China due to demand for such equipment the world over. We therefore decided to do it indigenously. We got the machine conceptualized and designed completely in-house and ourselves produced the vital equipment viz. Synthetic Blood Penetration Testing equipment, required for Determination of the resistance of Protective Clothing materials to penetration by blood and body fluids,”.said Chavan.
The Textiles Committee is a statutory body established in 1963 through an Act of Parliament and is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India. It has been formed to ensure the quality of textiles and textile machinery both for internal consumption and export purpose. The Committee is tasked with the functions of establishing laboratories for the testing of textiles and textile machinery and providing for their inspection and examination, besides other functions which flow from the main objective of ensuring quality of textiles products and textiles machinery.
