The Tirupur knitwear cluster has been allotted Rs 15 crores for setting up a facility center for product innovation, testing and training. The common facility centre will be equipped with latest machinery to produce innovative knitted denim products, woolen fabrics with additional thermal properties and quilt fabrics. The testing equipment will ensure that the knitted fabrics produced are of high quality and can help producers of end products with greater value addition in the textile export market.

The training centre will impart skills to workers in a systematic manner for producing a workforce that can cope with the changing needs of the industry including product diversification at periodic intervals. Another set of people will be trained on maintenance of imported knitting machinery so as to reduce breakdown hours.

Tirupur township, 60 kilometers from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, is an important garment cluster. This township started with the production of low valued cotton hosiery items mainly undergarments during the 1920s and started with exports from 1974. There are around 700 active exporters and 1700 domestic garment suppliers at Tirupur. There are more than 2000 small units which specialize in knitting, compacting and calendaring, bleaching, dyeing and embroidery.