Several countries, including India, have introduced strict ecological standards for textile industries. With more stringent controls expected in the future, it is essential that control measures be implemented to minimize effluent problems. Industrial textile processing comprises pre-treatment, dyeing, printing and finishing operations. These production processes not only consume large amounts of energy and water, but also produce substantial waste products.
Interest in ecologically friendly, wet-processing textile techniques has increased in recent years because of increased awareness of environmental issues throughout the world. Customers have well realised the need for newer technology for a sustainable future. Increasing adoption of modern technologies from international suppliers have enabled new Indian manufacturers to have an edge in reducing resource consumption while improving efficiency and machine performance.
Unlike other textile verticals, the dyeing & finishing industry is highly capital intensive and receives less recognition from the Government. That is why there are not many new projects in this field. However, one company had the courage to commission an ultra modern green field processing unit, not very far from New Delhi, and that is MI Industries India Pvt. Ltd.
MI Industries is a typical example of our nation’s ‘Need of the hour’ campaign to promote sustainable future. This green field project has been set up on 14 acres of land at Aligarh, about 120 km from New Delhi. The textile unit, being the first in this locality, faced many hurdles during the installation phase, which were overcome by an efficient team at MI headed by the company Chairman, Mr. Arvind Modi, a visionary and technologist.
After five-six years of detailed ground work, the owners of MI Industries finalized on latest technology for their textile processing unit with quality being its utmost priority. An investment of Rs. 150 crores has been pumped into MI Industries so far on land acquisition, building cost and equipments. The shop floor houses the most modern textile processing machines from suppliers located across the globe equipped with state-of-art automation and process controls. The setup extends to continuous dyeing and printing with a product range which includes cottons, polyesters, lycra blends, viscose, modal, tencel, and linen fabrics. Further, this plant has already served as a ready model for many previous manufacturers to upgrade their machinery to better compete in this changing sector. A.T.E. has been a major supplier and technical advisor to MI Industries in their new venture.
During an exclusive interaction with The Textile Magazine, Mr. Modi said: “Our facility is versatile in nature with the ability to manufacture a wide range of products. Our fabric quality and production processes strictly comply with the highest international norms. Even though we are taking our initial steps into this business, our product acceptability has been very high for our finished goods.”
The owner acknowledges the efficiency and performance of their imported machines including some of the Goller and Monforts ranges. The unit started production less than a year ago and are yet to run these machines at full capacity.
Highly skilled workforce occupies the shop floor of MI industries handled by Mr. R.C. Mishra, Senior VP – Processing, who comes in with more than two decades of experience in this vertical. The company aims to achieve production of four million metres per month within the next few months.
MI Industries has a clear policy of servicing a customer on multiple fronts using their wide product portfolio enabling the company to better service fewer number of larger customers. The company caters to garment exports, domestic market, institutions and also fabric export markets, evenly balancing it out in each of these four segments.
“We naturally undertook extensive research before investing in our washing and dyeing ranges, and had confidence in our theory and supplier’s ability to deliver the supply scope. This has been confirmed in terms of both performance of the various brands and after-servicing capabilities of their Indian agents”, added Mr. Modi during his conversation.
A large number of machines are being supplied and serviced by the exclusive agent for Monforts in India, A.T.E. The dyeing and finishing business within A.T.E. holds a dominant edge over its competitors in this sector. With more than 15 principles in his pocket, Mr. Rajendran, Head – Dyeing/Finishing Business, is the perfect man for the job when it comes to textile finishings.
The main challenge for the textile industry today is to modify production methods, so they are more ecologically friendly at a competitive price, by using safer dyes and chemicals and by reducing cost of effluent treatment/disposal.
Surrounded by agri land, MI industries was under the radar while setting up this new project. The company addressed all the environmental concerns by using three simple steps – use of new, less polluting technologies, effective treatment of effluent, and recycling waste several times over before discharge. The facility is equipped with chemical-biological treatment plant of 2 MLD capacity, making it a highly eco-friendly textile manufacturing unit.
The textile finishing business in India has seen a positive trend in the last few years, but still far behind when it comes to volume game. But new projects like MI Industries are starting to cause small ripples which we hope some to help our nation reach the set goal of $220 billion by 2020.