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Registered under the Societies Act of 1860, the TAI is a not-for-profit organisation managed by the apex body called the Governing Council (GC) which is elected by it's affiliated Units in proportion to their membership strength. The Office Bearers of the Central Office are elected by the GC member. The Units, with their own Office Bearers, are autonomous in their activities and are joined together through a federal structure under the Central Office at the national level. The members of Managing Committees of the Units and of the Governing Council are elected every two years.
Membership is open to all connected with the textile industry, trade, education and research as individuals or as oragnisations. Individuals can acquire student, ordinary, overseas, life or patron membership. The phenomenal growth achieved by TAI over 60 years is result not only of the vision of its founding fathers, but also of the true democratic spirit of a vast number of dedicated textile professionals who have worked ceaselessly for the cause of TAI.
The role of the Units, each located at textile centres in India, consists essentially of holding Lectures, Seminars, Conferences, Study Tours, Technical Quiz Programmes, Experience Exchange Talks etc. At the large centres like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi etc., the TAI Units have acquired own premises. The Units vie with each other to host the prestigeous All India Textile Conference (AITC) at their location. Most Units organise social gatherings, and inviting families of the members also to join the function. The stronger Units help the weaker Units in their geogrophical neighbourhood to function more effectively for their membership.
Publication of the journal, books/booklets, giving professional awards based on application or examination, deciding upon the Honours to be bestowed upon textile professionals and on dedicated members of TAI are the main functions of the Centre.
Facilitating Unit activities - helping them to serve their members better - is a major responsibility of the Centre. It, therefore, appoints four Zonal co-ordinators for helping the not so strong Units to organise activities for their members.
THE ASSOCIATION BORN - 1939
HOUSE MAGAZINE STARTED - 1940
ANNUAL CONFERENCES BEGIN - 1944
PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATION STARTED - 1945
BOOK PUBLICATION TAKEN UP - 1964
Against this back drop a stage was set for the entry of technocrats and supervisory staff of textile mills on one platform for free exchange of technical & other useful information in a spirit of fellowship and co-operation. Ten technicians Servashri Nandulal Mehta, R. W. Contractor, D. B. Katrak, R. M. Broker, Y.J. Homi, N. K. Mehta, A. N. Gokhale, V. A. Ajgaonkar, T. G. Chowdhari & R. K. Gujar with such ideas took the lead on Sunday the 9th April 1939 at Damodar Thackersey hall, Parel, Bombay and set an appeal to the technicians of the mills in the city of Bombay to get together.
In response to the appeal about 126 technicians attended over the meeting. Shri K. S. Davar, a retired spinning suptd. Of Brady group of mills, presided over the meeting. A resolution to start an Association of the textile technicians to disseminate technical knowledge and encourage fellowship amongst the technical and supervisory staff all over India, was adopted and “ The Textile Association (India)” was born on that day.
A provisional committee of 18 members was formed with Shri Nandulal Mehta as the Chairman and Shri Narayan Ullal as the Secretary to draft the constitution. Three classes of membership fees Rs. 3/-, Rs.6/- & Rs. 12/- per year were decided. The provisional Committee then appointed a sub committee of five members- Sarvashri Nandulal Mehta, D. B. Katrak, G. N. Vaidya, P.V. S Iyanger and N. V. Ullal to prepare the draft constitution.
With a view to give wider publicity of the activities, within a year of its foundation in 1940 the first issue of technical magazine which was named as “ Textile Digest” was published with an initiative of Shri G. N. Vaidya & Shri N. V. Ullal. The publication of the Textile Digest initially served as a very good medium for communication & information rather than having technological & research orientation. Since January, 1972 with an initiative of Shri A. R. Garde the Textile digest has been renamed as “ The Journal of the Textile Association” (JTA) and started publishing technical and research oriented articles with the help of technocrats and research institutes. JTA was a quarterly journal till 1977 and it became a bimonthly from January, 1978. Today on account of varied interesting features being covered in the JTA being useful in all disciplines of textile industry. It is considered as an important publication on Textile not only in our country but it has been warmly accepted outside our country too. In the recent years the JTA has been given a new look and made it more informative, educative & quite attractive which can be compared with any international magazine. The credit for which goes to Hon. Editor Dr. Teli and his co-ordinators, creators Shri P. S. Pawar and Shri K. D. Sanghvi from Bombay. The Editorial Board of JTA has been playing a great roll in maintaining the standard of the magazine.
“United we stand” was the first logo of the Association, which has been changed to present logo in the year 1975.
Initially the activities were concentrated in Bombay only, but slowly and slowly the message was spread outside Bombay through the technicians of Bombay and the Liason officer Shri J J. Randeri. A need was therefore fell to open branches at variour textile centres. The first Branch (Unit) of the Association was started at Solapur in the year 1944. Till the end of the 3rd decade there were only 13 units and in the fourth decade a further need was felt to open more new units to bring all technocrats from different areas of the country under the fold of the Association. It was on account of leaders provided by Hon. Maj. R. P. Poddar and initiative taken up by Shri J. J. Randeri, Shri M. K. Mehra, Shri B. A. Shah & Shri H. C. Jain the message of the Association was spread through out country and today the Association is having 27 units.
From the foundation of the Association the head office of the Association was in Bombay, first in the Blavatsky Lodge, than at Ganesh Bhavan Suparibaug Road (New Dr. AmbedkarRoad). It was shifted to Ahmedabad in 1966. But again in 1979 the Head office, now called the central office, Shifted to Bombay at “ Santosh” Shivaji Park, Dadar. This building was purchased in 1960 and the property belongs to Bombay unit. This office has been completely renovated with the personal interest and initiative from Shri R. K. Dalmia and today it is made most modern equipped with computer & fax.
At present many units have their own office premises. Bombay, Ahmedabad, Solapur, Delhi, South Gujarat (Surat) & M.P. (Indore) are having their own office premises. Over and above Bombay is having a entire building of their own, the Ahmedabad unit is having a very large property with a Community hall and a Open Air Theater in their premises on the bank of river Sabarmati constructed in the year 1965.
The first international conference was held in Bombay in 1974. Our Association had the priviledge of holding so far eight international conference in the year 1974, 1981,1985,1987,1994,1995,2002, 2004 and 2008..
The awards “Associates of Textile Association” (A.T.A.) and “Fellow of the Textile Association”(F.T.A.) are given to the members of the Association. The AA is acquired either by application or by examination. A.T.A. Diploma has been recognized by Govt. of India for central services. The F.T.A. can be acquired by application or given as Honorary award to only one person every year at the All India Textile Conference. These awards started since 1945. the first A.T.A. examination was held in 1954, and first Honorary F.T.A. was awarded in the year 1946.
Initially in 1945 the Dimloma sub-committee headed by Shri N. V. Ullal set up the norms for syllabus which are being revised time to time as per requirement. Now a special professional award committee has been set up by the Association to decide the policy as review the syllabus for the awards.
In 1968 under the Chairmanship of Shri K. G. Vaze, training classes were started in some of the units for A.T.A. examination. Ahmedabad Unit took initiative in publishing books for the guidelines, of A.T.A. students. Efforts are continuously made to improve the standards of our Diplomas and in the golden jubilee year of the Association. i.e. in the year 1989 with the initiative pf P.A.C. Chairman Dr. H. V. Sreenivasmurthy, the Assotion has started G.M.T.A.(Graduate Member of Textile Association) course by upgrading the syllabus to a Degree level, which has been warmly welcomed by the members. The first examination of G.M.T.A. was held in the year 1990.
A special convocation functions to give A.T.A. and F. T.A. awards at the hands of an eminent person was started after the inaugural function of A.I.T.C., since the conference at Bhiwani in 1980, has been very much appreciated by one and all.
The Association is regularly conferring following few awards at the All India Textile Conference every year.
Since 1981 a book publication committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of Dr. Gulrajani and the activity has started in full swing. It has so far published number of books, Monogram on diff. subjects useful to the members. IT has also published number of small booklets on Spinning, Weaving, Chemical Processing & Engineering having about 30 pages which are useful to supervisors and shop floor level technicians, available at a quite nominal cost. The first publication was brought out in 1982 at Kanpur AITC and up till now it has acquired a very good popularity and there is a continuous demand for the same.
The Textile Association (India) is one of the member of India Item Society alongwith T. M.M.A., AMMTSM (INDIA), I-C-M-F and I-S-I. Since 1980 India Itme Society is organizing India International Textile Machinery Exhibition every four years in India. So far such exhibitions were hold in the year 1980,1984,1988,1992,1996, 2004, 2008 & 2012.
The Textile Association (India) is closely Associated with the research associations in the country such as ATIRA, BTRA, SITRA, NITRA, IJIRA etc. and trying to keep up interactions with them on different occasions.
Our Association has always been trying to participate in the formation of national policy and debates concerning the Textile Industry. In 1985 when the new Textile Policy was being drafted by the Govt. The Association took keen interest and forwarded a set of recommendations for incorporation in the final policy under the presidentship of Shri B. A. Shah. These recommendations were appreciated by all the members of the committee and many of them were incorporated in the final policy.
In recognition of the Association activities & its positive contribution the Govt. invited representation of the Association in 1987 on the All India Council for Technical Education attached with the Ministry of Human Resources.
In 1988 Ministry of Textile invited Association representative on the country’s most important policy making forum i.e. Development Council for Textile Industry.
Shri M.K. Mehra represented the Association on both the above committee and made recommendations in the Development Council meeting for modernization, training and development of staff and for free import of modern technology advocating total modernization of mills and closer of unviable units.
Sometime back, The Ahmedabad Unit of the Association was entrusted the work of technical assessment of all the closed textile mills of Gujarat by the Government of Gujarat. The entire work was completed during the Presidentship of Shri D. G. Naik under the personal supervision & guidance of Mr. B. R. Shah.
In 1996, TAI contributed to the formation of the 9th plan for Textiles through the representation on the main working group led by the Secretary Textiles, and also on its sub-working group on Research & Development.
In the first three decades, the activities of the Association were largely concentrated in the organized sector of major textile centres like Bombay, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kanpur, Coimbatore, Bangalore, & Chennai etc. In the 4th decade it has brought out machinery manufacturers, dyes and chemical industry in the fold and in the 5th decade and thereafter the association has tried to reach the interior of the industry and to all sectors i.e. handloom, powerloom, process houses covering cotton and man-mades silk & jute.
Detailed of membership fees: w.e.f. 01.04.2021:
| Sr No. | Type of Member | Entrance Fees | One Time Membership | Annual Subscription | Share of The Center | Share of The Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. | Hon. Member | - | - | - | ||
| B. | Patron Member | - | 4600 | - | 2300 | 2300 |
| C. | Life Member | 200 | 3000 | - | 1500 | 1500 |
| D. | Ordinary Member | |||||
| E. |
Overseas Member -A Overseas Member -B |
$ 10 $ 5 |
$ 100 $ 100 |
$ 10 $ 12 |
100% 100% |
- - |
| F. | Corporate Member | - | 20000 | - | 10000 | 10000 |
| G. |
Student Member A Student Member B |
|||||
| H. | Life to Patron | - | 2000 | - | 1000 | 1000 |
GST @18% applicable on the above menbership fees
Bringing Knowledge that Helps to Improve Practice
JTA - a bimonthly periodical devoted to textile science, techonology,engineering and management contains 4-8 articles of practical interest to different segments of the Indian textile industry. Articles are contributed by R&D organisations, teaching institutes, professionals etc. It is popular with a large readership in indian textile industry.
The number of textile teaching institutes in India has grown from just 2-3 in 1950 to over 60 by 1990. Even so, the need to help those engaged in diverse textile activities to become professionally qualified continues to exist. ATA and the recently introduced GMTA are equivalent to diploma and degree courses respectivey. The Fellowship serves to recognise good contribution to textile fields and even Ph.D. holders in textiles now seek this recognition.
Technical Booklets Tablets are short (24-32 pages) compilations on each stage of manufacture in spinning through chemical processing and on engineering utilities. Starting from basic functions, the TABLET gives norms on quality, productivity of machines and labour, faults and remedies, maintenance practices, supervisory check lists etc. of 29 different tablets have been published since 1982. Made available in art paper with coloured printing at very low costs, over 1,25,00 copies.
The Indian Textile Industry is in the throes of major sturctural re-adjustment. Only the fit will survive in the small, medium and large sectors of textile manufacture and of supplier industries like fibres and producers machinery, dyes-chemicals manufacturers. Higher education is being rapidly privatised and continuous education will play much larger role in future. Information technology has altered irreversibly the pace of flow of information and knowledge. The need for R&D has grown tremendously, but so have the possibilities of buying lastest technology improved.
The TAI is accutely aware of these changes and of their impact on the role to be played by a professional body like it. The Diamond Jubilee offers a good pause to look back, to introspect, and to plan afresh for the future of TAI, so as to continue its strong support to the 'Indian Textile Industry'.