Ludhiana:Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari has sought the setting up of National Institute of Fashion Technology in Ludhiana. In a letter to the Union Textiles Minister Dr Kavuru Sambasiva Rao, Tewari said, given the scope of garment and textile industry in Ludhiana there was a dire need to set up such an institution which could provide trained manpower locally.

In his letter to the Textiles Minister, Tewari said, “knitwear industry comprising of around 1300 medium and small scale enterprises, do supply their produce not only to every part of the country but also do lot of exports and earn so much of valuable foreign exchange.

While this is so, he added, the knitwear industry experiences acute shortage of qualified professionals with designing skills even though there is abundance of youth who are interested to be groomed in the knitwear manufacturing. “Hence there is an immediate need for imparting training for the youth and making them competent enough in designing skills”, he added.