The Synthetic & Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council

Textiles Committee comes up with fully indigenous Design and Make in India PPE Testing Equipment

 

Circular No. ES/152/2020-21                                                      23rd May, 2020   

To : Members of the Council 

Sub:  Textiles Committee comes up with fully indigenous Design and Make in India PPE Testing Equipment 

Dear Member, 

Press Release dated 21st May, 2020 is issued by the Ministry of Textiles on the above subject. 

The Textiles Committee, Mumbai will now test and certify PPE body coveralls required for healthcare workers and other COVID-19 warriors. This will make the Textiles Committee as the ninth approved laboratory to test and certify body coveralls. 

Shri Ajit Chavan, Secretary of the Textiles Committee and Additional Textile Commissioner explained how the Committee rose up to the occasion to overcome the huge challenge of non-availability of reputed domestic manufacturers of PPE testing equipment and incessant delay/long gestation period to import machine from China as well as the ever-increasing prices by the opportunist companies in China due to demand for such equipment the world over. 

Accordingly, the Textile Committee decided to do it indigenously, they got the machine conceptualized and designed completely in-house and 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, which they completed within 45 days. 

The National accreditation body NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing & Calibration Laboratories) has audited the lab facility and has approved it under three test standards. 

The Textile Committee Secretary informed how the testing equipment will help the nation during the crisis: “With the acquisition of this equipment and with a concrete plan to add some more equipment as per need, we will be able to address not only the quantitative but also the qualitative requirements involved in the testing of Body Coveralls worn by the frontline health workers and other COVID-19 warriors”. 

Under the leadership of the Textiles Minister Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, the Ministry 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 the following – 

 

  • 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.
  • A Unique Certification Code (UCC) is issued for each passed/cleared prototype sample submitted by the manufacturers of the PPE Coveralls.
  • This is required to be embossed on each manufactured Coverall along with the name of the manufacturer, date of manufacture and name of the client.
  • This procedure has been fully implemented in respect of procurement by M/s HLL Lifecare Limited, which is the procurement agency for the hospitals and healthcare organisations under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India.
  • The manufacturers are also required to submit an affidavit along with their submitted sample, stating details of their manufacturing unit, GSTIN number, company registration number, Udyog Aadhar number or DIC registration number and other relevant details.
  •  They are also required to declare that they are textile manufacturers and not traders.
  • The affidavit is to form a part of the UCC Certificate.

Details of all UCC Certificates are available on the official websites of DRDO, OFB (Ordnance Factory Board) and SITRA, for verification by the public.  

The eight other NABL accredited labs are: (i) South India Textiles Research Association (SITRA), Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu (ii) DRDO-INMAS, New Delhi, (iii) Heavy Vehicle Factory, Avadi, Chennai (iv) Small Arms Factory, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh (v) Ordnance Factory, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh (vi) Ordnance Factory, Muradnagar, Uttar Pradesh (vii) Ordnance Factory, Ambernath, Maharashtra and (viii) Metal & Steel Factory, Ishapore, West Bengal. 

About Textiles Committee

The Textiles Committee is a statutory body established in 1963 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 the quality of textiles products and textiles machinery.

 Members may please make a note of the above.

 Thanking you,

 Yours faithfully,

 S.BALARAJU
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR