The National Institute of Fashion Technology Bill, 2006 has been enacted. After the President’s assent to the legislation as approved by Parliament in its previous session and its gazette notification, the legislation has come into force. The Act aims at nurturing and promoting excellence in fashion technology. Its object is to grant statutory status to the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), which was set up by the Centre under the Ministry of Textiles in 1986.
NIFT is fully funded and supported by the Government of India as a national-level institute for design, management and technology to train professionals to meet the challenges of the global market in promoting India’s exports in textiles, garments, lifestyle products and other fashion goods. The Institute has been running full-time diploma programmes in fashion designing, garment manufacturing technology, apparel marketing and merchandising, accessory design, leather garment design and technology, knitwear design and technology, textile design and development and fashion communication through seven centres located in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Gandhinagar and Bangalore. In 2003, its academic programmes were restructured to bring them at par with technical education programmes offered by other professional institutions with international benchmarking. NIFT has played a pathfinder’s role in benchmarking professional fashion business, proactively anticipating and responding to the business environment.
The potential for Indian products has not yet been fully exploited and there is immense potential for its future growth. In order to take full advantage of the opportunities that are now available, the Government took a serious look at education in fashion technology. The enactment of the National Institute of Fashion Technology Bill, 2006 is meant to achieve this purpose.
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(Release ID :19028)