History of SITRA

The foundation stone of SITRA was laid by the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on Chritmas day in 1955.The institution then was only a vague concept in the minds of those pioneers who helped to establish it.At that time ,the objective of SITRA was defined as follows. 
"It will be our endeavour to build up a group of workers well versed in the application of scientific knowledge to the problems of textile manufacture.By the use of the scientific method,we hope to bring about fusion of the various points of view in industry and thus help to produce better textiles at lower costs and at the same time attend to the well-being of all who work in the textile industry".
The South India Textile Research Association was conceived as a link in the chain of national laboratories in the country,sponsored by the textile industry and supported by the Government of India. The preliminary plans and budget estimates of establishing the institute as well as provisional programme of research and its finance were initially prepared by a Technical Committee appointed by the cotton Textiles Funds Committe (CTFC), Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India. In view of the fact that a majority of the mills in the South are spinning units it was decided that SITRA,to start with,should mainly be concerned with fibre research,spinning and investigations to improve the quality and efficiency of the handloom industry. SITRA was later transferred from CTFC to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1961.Consequent to the Government of India's decision to attach the laboratories/research associations to the user industry, SITRA came under the Ministry of Industry.In 1980,the administrative support of SITRA was changed over to Department of Textiles, Ministry of Commerce and Civil Supplies; and from 1981 onwards it has been under the purview of Ministry of Textiles. 
 

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