The Parliament in its 14th year of the Republic enacted the Textiles Committee Act, 1963 ( 41 of 1963), which received the President's assent on 3rd December, 1963 and was published in the Gazette of India on December 4, 1963. The Textiles Committee, as an organisation, started functioning from 22nd August, 1964. By virtue of Section 3 of the Act, the Textiles Committee is a statutory body with perpetual succession. The Textiles Committee is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India
The Textiles Committee's main objective is to ensure the quality of textiles and textile machinery both for internal consumption and export purposes. The Textiles Committee, as corollary to its main objective of ensuring the quality of textiles and textiles machinery has been entrusted with the following functions, under Section 4 of the Act:
1. To undertake, assist and encourage, scientific, technological and economic research.
2. To establish standard specifications for textiles, textile machinery and the packing materials.
3. To establish laboratories for the testing of textiles and textile machinery.
4. To provide training in the techniques of quality control.
5. To provide for the inspection and examination of textiles and textile machinery.
6. To promote export of textiles.
7. To collect statistics and
8. To advise the Central Government on all matters relating to textiles and textile machinery, etc. The Committee is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India. The Textiles Committee is managed by a Committee comprising of 29 members as laid down under Section 3(3) of the Act and Rule 3 of the Textiles Committee Rules, 1965. It comprises a Chairman from the Industry, a Vice-chairman -Textile Commissioner (ex-officio), and a Secretary, who is the Chief Executive of the organisation as a Member Secretary. There are 12 other ex-officio members representing various Textile Federations, Export Promotion Councils etc., and 14 other members representing almost all interests of the textile sector. The Committee's headquarters is at Mumbai. There are 29 other offices in major textile manufacturing/exporting centres, of them 18 have textile testing laboratories, including 9 eco-parameters testing laboratories.
