Delivering social and economic development through India’s textiles industry

30 Apr 2024

Intertek expanded a skills development project aimed at providing training and employment opportunities for young people in India’s textiles industry with the opening of new training centres in Gurugram and Bengaluru in 2023.

This initiative started in 2022, when we launched the first Textile Technology Training ('T3') Centre in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, the heart of the South India textile belt and one of Asia’s biggest knitwear export hubs. The T3 Centre provides socioeconomically disadvantaged young people, mostly women, with free access to certified courses for future lab technicians, chemists, merchandisers and customer executives.

Working in partnership with Reviving Green Revolution Cell, a Tata Trusts initiative, we have trained 264 young people and placed 177 into employment in Tirupur. With the opening of new T3 Centres in Gurugram, northern India, and Bengaluru, south India, we are looking to train over 400 more by early 2025.

India has a growing youth population, and unemployment due to a widening skills gap in the labour force is an issue faced by many. The T3 programme is working to change the lives of not only the trainees, but also successive generations, helping to lift entire communities out of economic hardship and creating a virtuous cycle of growth, stability and better quality of life.